by Cathleen Williams, Homeward Street Journal
Protests have ignited across the nation in the first weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidency, with protests against Trump’s deportation policies taking place in Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Georgia and North Carolina. In Los Angeles, protesters shut down U.S. Highway 101 on February 2 to bring awareness to the threats to migrant and immigrant populations.
Hundreds of Californians of diverse ages and ethnicities rallied at the state capitol in Sacramento on February 5 to bring attention to this and other developments. They raised the flags of the United States, Mexico and Canada, and held high their homemade signs.
Other groups are also at risk from Trump and Elon Musk’s broad-based attacks on federal agencies, including poor and unhoused communities that are disproportionately represented by people of color. One example is the recent short-lived cancellation of all federal grants and payments, including Head Start’s child care programs that serve thousands of low-income children. As of February 5, payments were still delayed in the aftermath of the freeze.
Trump’s executive orders outlawing diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or DEI, in all federal agencies will protect and perpetuate racist and discriminatory practices in federal housing programs and block enforcement of civil rights laws, as reported by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Another executive order imposing a hiring freeze will weaken the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which administers housing programs like Section 8 vouchers and other low-income housing investments. The removal of protections for transgender people will strip away fair housing and legal safeguards for shelter and public housing programs.
Yet another executive order, which attacks “sanctuary jurisdictions” that refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is intended to block federal funding of their local and state housing programs. An additional decree that lifts restrictions on ICE arrests in shelters and disaster relief centers threatens to drive away vulnerable migrant and immigrant community members who are in crisis.
Beyond the immediate impact of the executive orders, the Trump administration, with the cooperation of several Congressional members, has announced its intention to cut $2 trillion from the $6.75 trillion federal budget. Experts from the Brookings Institution, analyzing budget proposals submitted during Trump’s former term, have projected that crucial supports for poor and unhoused people will be reduced and eliminated on a scale that hasn’t been seen since the 1930s, during the Great Depression.
These cuts, which were previously proposed but blocked by lawmakers or the courts, include dismantling the benefits of the Medicaid, and Supplemental Social Security Income (SSI) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which sustain the minimal needs of many unhoused people. Here’s a look at what can be expected on the basis of the past budget proposals:
- Blocking SNAP’s food stamp benefits for 3 million people with incomes between 130% to 200% of the federal poverty line—or between $41,175 and $64,300 per year for a family of four—and ending minimum benefits, impacting an additional 2 million people;
- Requiring states to pay 25% of food stamp costs, and permitting reduction of benefit levels;
- Eliminating food stamps benefits for people aged 18-49 who are not disabled or raising children at home, with various work requirements and time limitations enforced;
- Repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and eliminating its Medicaid expansion, which extended coverage to people below 133% of the poverty line, or just under $43,000 per year;
- Imposing funding caps on Medicaid as part of $1 trillion funding cut over 10 years;
- Raising rents for Section 8 tenants, eliminating assistance with utility expenses, and ending federal funding for a range of local low income housing construction programs;
- Cutting SSI, reducing eligibility for benefits and eliminating or reducing other types of cash assistance (like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families).
The list is daunting but it can and must be fought, item by item, budget line by budget line. Check in with your community. This is the time to study, understand and get involved.
The day after last November’s election, the Sunrise Movement tweeted: “Trump loves corporations even more than Democrats do, but he ran an anti-establishment campaign that gave an answer to people’s desire for change.” As social movements respond to outrage over Trump’s policies and tie their actions to a real agenda for transformative change, they puncture the pretense that he offers any sort of real alternative to a democracy ruled by elites and an economy designed to serve the wealthy.
“We can stop him, and we must,” Sunrise added. “But it’s going to take many thousands of people taking to the streets and preparing to strike. And it’s going to take mass movements putting out a better vision for our country than Trumpism and proving that we can make it happen.”
