News » Advocacy in Albany Gets Results!

On a chilly day in mid-March, a dedicated group of advocates from University Settlement's Project Home, Beacon, Family Literacy, Senior HeART, STRIDE and Senior Center programs went to Albany to help support the Human Services Council in advocating for the support of vital services like child welfare, after-school and homelessness prevention programs. 

We're excited to announce that it made a difference in the New York State budget!  See below for pictures from the rally and read on for the announcement of our success from the Human Services Council.

HSC is delighted to announce that our advocacy in Albany has paid off.  The State budget will:

• Restore $28 million to stop the proposed one percent across-the-board cut to not-for-profit human service agencies and will maintain the COLA agreement in future years.
• Dismantle the proposed youth services block grant and much of the related cuts.
• Restore the homeless service prevention program, SRO funding, and funds for the homeless intervention program.
• Restore $29 million in child welfare funding for the Community Optional Preventive (COPS) program.
• Restores $6.4 million to Advantage After-school and add another $5 million to the program.
• Balance the budget fairly by raising personal income taxes (for a three year period) on New York’s top earners.  Those earning $300,000 - $500,000 annually will be taxed at a rate of 7.85% and the rate for those earning above $500,000 will be 8.97%.  This will create $4 billion in revenue.