Introduction

Dear Friends, Supporters, and Colleagues –

Welcome to Human Services Action (HSA)’s first-ever City and State Scorecard. HSA envisions a world in which New Yorkers have all their basic needs met and human services providers can focus on building connection and community. A first step to that goal? Holding our elected officials accountable to prioritizing the human services sector in budgets and legislation.

Even though government agencies and electeds rely on human services organizations to support their constituents, City and State elected officials continue to cut our funding and set poverty-level wages for our essential workers. Over the past few years, late payments and reductions in funding have forced organizations to shutter essential programs, while low-wages result in high-levels of staff turnover. 

In short, providers, workers, and everyday New Yorkers suffer while the City and State adopt an attitude that government savings should be borne on the backs of low-income neighborhoods and BIPOC communities.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Our first-ever Human Services Action Scorecard will help our supporters identify champions of the sector’s issues, as well as legislators who we can educate and press to join us on the right side of history. We thank all the City and State officials who are already supporting subsector-specific issues and look forward to bringing these champions into our work to support the health of the human services system across the board.

We’re proud of all we accomplished in our first year as a 501(c)(4) organization. Our policy priorities are beginning to move forward – including a more than $700 million cost-of-living adjustment for NYC human services workers –  but there is a lot more territory to cover. 

This first scorecard is a chance to open a conversation with electeds, offer information and clarity about legislator voting records to our supporters, and let City and State governments know that HSA is here to hold them accountable. This and future scorecards will be used as a tool for political advocacy and transparency by human services workers, leaders, and community members.

The scorecard is a valuable tool in our shared effort towards transforming the human services sector.  We welcome your feedback and questions as we hone our scorecard for future years. In future years we may expand the scorecard to include other offices, as well as other issues.  Please do not hesitate to reach out to info@humanservicesaction.org and let us know how we can improve this tool for the future.

In Solidarity,
Board of Directors
Human Services Action

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