March 20, 2024

The NYS budget process is in its final days, and the fate of the Children’s Health Home Care Management program is hanging in the balance. To preserve these life-saving services for more than 30,000 children throughout the state, we need to pull out all the stops to encourage our elected officials to restore the Children’s Health Home Medicaid cut.

We’ve made incredible process with our advocacy so far, and we’re depending on you to help us make the final push to the finish line. Your phone calls have been noticed; that’s why we’re asking you to take a few minutes today and make three more. Here’s how you can keep making a difference:

• Call Governor Hochul’s office at 518.474.8390, press 1 to leave a message or 2 to talk to a member of the staff (either one is fine!)
• Call Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, Chair of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, at 518.455.5462
• Call Senator Liz Krueger, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, at 518.455.2297

Tell them you support the nonprofit human services sector and urge them to fully fund the Children’s Health Home Medicaid cut.

You might have noticed some new names on this list. That’s because we’re broadening our reach, and because of all the progress we’ve made during previous call-in days. Keep fighting!

February 8, 2024

Children’s Health Homes aren’t buildings — they’re a statewide case management service for nearly 30,000 children and families. Their intervention and crisis support aids families and kids in the community to avoid ER/ED visits, reduce 911 calls and reduce family disruption.

Our healthcare system is complicated. Finding and getting the care we and our families need requires time, patience, understanding, and flexibility. Making and getting to appointments can feel like a full-time job—so think of how challenging things can be for a single mother working two jobs, or a family of six without a car to get to the doctor or therapist appointment?

After a $100 million cut enacted in last year’s budget, this year’s proposal eliminates another $125 million in funding; sounding the death knell for Children’s Health Home Care Management in New York State. Where do almost 30,000 children and families go for help then?

Care Managers serve Medicaid recipients who have chronic physical health conditions, mental health diagnoses, sickle cell disease, and or HIV/AIDS. Their families struggle with poverty, food insecurity, and limited access to health care, transportation, and education, all of which contribute to costly health outcomes.

They need our help.

We urge the Legislature to negotiate a budget with the governor that ensures New York remains committed to the programs that provide the vital help that we all agree our children deserve.

What can you do?

Make two calls today and tell our legislative leaders to restore $125 million in Medicaid funding to save Children’s Health Homes:

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie: 518.455.3791
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins: 518.455.2415

January 5, 2024 

We don’t think it’s wrong to believe that cries for help in our communities should be answered. That when a child needs a safe place to go, a warm bed is available. That when a family goes hungry, a hot meal can be shared. That if domestic violence occurs, or a mental health crisis happens, or an addiction threatens health and safety, someone with the skills and resources to help should be there.

Nonprofit Human Services providers are there for tens of thousands of New Yorkers every day. This passionate, diverse, skilled, trained, experienced, and caring group of professionals is on duty 24/7/365 to provide help whenever and wherever it is needed, often when people are their most vulnerable.

Our workforce is full of people who make sacrifices to be able to serve. It’s mental health counselors with $125,000 in student debt to fund a master’s degree to get a job providing therapeutic support to survivors of abuse, making $41,000 a year. It’s residential workers starting at $18 per hour to work overnight with teens who have been removed from their homes, putting in extra shifts because two people left for higher-paying jobs this month alone. It’s a recovery counselor with double a normal caseload because there’s no funding for more workers, but turning away someone in need is impossible.

We believe this workforce needs support, and our NYS elected officials—from the governor to the legislature—have the power to provide that support. How?

Include a 3.2% Human Services cost of living adjustment (COLA) in the NYS budget.

Why 3.2%? Because we live in a world where according to the Consumer Price Index, the cost of most things people need to survive went up that much. In other words, we’re not even asking for our sector to get a raise. We’re just asking to not be allowed to fall further behind.

After more than a decade of deferred investment, our sector has seen COLAs in the past two budgets. That’s helped, but we’re still more than 10 years behind everyone else. That’s where you can make a difference.

How can you help? Stand up and be heard. Ask the governor to include the 3.2 % Human Services COLA in the state’s budget. Simply call the governor’s office at 518.474.8390 and tell her you support our sector!

It takes less than 5 minutes, and it means the world.