Dear ones,
I hope you are enjoyed the view from your window this morning if you haven’t yet gotten out to stomp around.
Congress is working toward a Covid-relief bill after six months of inaction by the Republican-controlled Senate. It is looking as though funding to cities and states will be excluded. This is pretty dire news, especially with the looming expenses of vaccine distribution and shoring up local economies, not to mention essential services.
There’s always the inevitable pile of bad news after I use up all the good news on Tuesdays. I was pleased to learn, however, that Jeff Bezos’s ex, MacKenzie Scott, gave away about 10% of her $60 billion fortune of ill-gotten gains this year. Her charitable giving was “data-driven,” and she said that her team
paid ‘special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital.’
She added that some of her donations aimed to fulfill basic needs, such as food banks, emergency relief funds and support for the most vulnerable. Others focused on long-term issues that the pandemic has exacerbated.
She donated to historically Black colleges, civil rights organizations, food banks, groups providing debt relief. Higher taxes are better than philanthropy, though.
Contact Governor Cuomo to tell him that we cannot wait on federal money; we must raise taxes on the richest New Yorkers now.
Read this excellent discussion of the role that poverty and housing instability plays in the racial health gap. Then, tackle one or more of these recycled actions:
Make your own housing justice holiday card and send it to the address here OR complete this online form so that Housing Justice for All can print and send it.
Contact your council member and urge them to pass Introduction 146 to increase the allowable amount for existing rent vouchers.
Sign this petition urging legislators to pass the Emergency Housing Stability and Displacement Prevention Act.
And because poverty is always a scourge — especially in winter, especially in a pandemic, and especially during an economic crisis — consider a direct gift to someone struggling to stay housed and fed.
Donate to GiveDirectly, an organization making cash gifts to Americans facing food insecurity.
with love,
L