SECURING EVERY CHILD'S BIRTHRIGHT
Imagining innovative solutions to complex problems affecting children has been at the heart of Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York’s (CCC) work for six decades. Despite modest improvements in child wellbeing, too many children still face daily conditions that challenge healthy development and a future where achievement and economic stability will be out of reach unless steps are taken to reverse these trends.
Securing Every Child’s Birthright® is Citizens’ Committee for Children’s campaign to promote economic, housing and developmental security for all New York City children. We are championing large-scale initiatives as the best way to solve chronic problems affecting children.
The Securing Every Child’s Birthright® Campaign seeks to eliminate the barriers that prevent children from growing into healthy adulthood unprepared for productive lives in the 21st century. By calling on policymakers to go beyond short-term fixes and instead create lasting solutions, we can secure every child’s birthright to be healthy, housed, educated and safe.
Click here for the Securing Every Child's Birthright® brochure.
Recent Victories
Already the Securing Every Child's Birthright® Campaign has achieved several significant victories for New York City's children.
• We convinced the Mayor and City Council to allocate $55 million a year
for a New York City Earned Income Tax Credit – bringing the total possible value of the city, state, and federal EITCs to $6,000 per low-income wage earner, benefiting over 800,000 households.
• We won the expansion of the city’s Newborn Home Visiting Program, which now sends a health professional into the homes of 9,500 parents to provide health, medical and child safety information, developmental screenings, and environmental reviews.
• We advocated and won a New York City Child Care Tax Credit, which will enable 50,000 low-income working families to receive a tax refund to offset the high cost of child care.
• We secured an additional state support to expand Universal Pre-Kindergarten in New York City by 10,000 seats over two years.
• We advocated for the successful passage of the FRESH financing proposal to promote supermarket placement in undeserved areas and mobilized over 100 organizations to support passage of GreenCart legislation to bring 1,000 produce carts to food deserts throughout the city.
Economic Security
Create Financial Stability for All Children
Children face overwhelming barriers to success when they grow up poor. The effects of poverty on children are linked to long-term economic instability, homelessness, hunger, poor health, and limited educational achievement. The Securing Every Child’s Birthright® Campaign seeks long-term economic stability for families through initiatives that build
assets and supplement wages.
• Birthright Trust Fund – create an investment account for every child at birth to begin
accumulating assets that can be used at age 18 for college, housing, or starting a business.
• Tax Relief – increase the value and expand the reach of the Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) for working families with children.
• Child Care Tax Credit – establish a NYC Child Care Credit and make the federal credit fully refundable to offset child care costs for working families.
• Financial Literacy – provide educational opportunities to expand families‘ capacity to obtain, use, protect and build finances and assets.
Housing Security
Promote Housing Affordability and Stability for All Children
High rents threaten child well-being by pushing too many families into poorly maintained, overpriced and overcrowded apartments and creating unstable living conditions for children. The growing disparity between housing costs and income are also forcing parents to make difficult choices between paying rent or buying food, clothing, child care or medicine. The Securing Every Child’s Birthright® Campaign promotes affordable housing development and preservation and the creation of housing assistance for working families struggling to make ends meet.
• Affordable Housing Trust Fund – identify and dedicate a recurring revenue source in the NYS budget to support the development and preservation of affordable housing and augment NYC’s Housing Trust Fund with additional revenue to increase the number of affordable housing units built by the fund.
• Housing Subsidies – create a time-limited rent subsidy for low-income working families.
• Renter Tax Credit – create a refundable tax credit to help offset the burden of increased property taxes and energy costs being passed on to renters.
Developmental Security
Help All Children Grow Up Healthy
Young children have much to gain from public investments early in life. Quality health care and early education programs translate into better academic achievement and higher incomes when children become adults. Yet many families do not have access to what they need to prevent childhood illnesses, detect developmental problems or prepare children for school. The Securing Every Child’s Birthright® Campaign supports government investment in young children to ensure that they receive a strong foundation for learning, good health and success.
• Universal Newborn Home Visits – expand NYC’s program so that every newborn is visited by a health professional who provides new parents with information on infant health, child safety and conducts developmental screenings and environmental reviews.
• Expand Infant-Toddler Child Care – create child care opportunities for children ages 0-3.
• Universal Pre-Kindergarten – provide every three-year old with a half-day and every four-year old with a full-day early education program.
• Healthy, Affordable Food – increase access to healthy affordable food in underserved communities.
To help CCC in Securing Every Child's Birthright®, sign up for the latest information and opportunities to get involved.
