NEW YORK (January 12, 2022) -- The Coalition of Asian American Children and Families (CACF) supports the innovative policy solutions and investments outlined in the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Legislative Caucus 2023 People’s Budget. We believe that the People’s Budget would support multiple AAPI communities who have historically been underserved and marginalized.  In addition, we urge the State to recommit to funding the NYS AAPI Equity Budget to equitably and inclusively support AAPI New Yorkers.

AAPI New Yorkers comprise 11% of the State’s population and are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group and voting population in New York City and State and the nation.  However, AAPI New Yorkers face high rates of poverty, linguistic isolation, and overcrowded housing.  AAPI NYers’ urgent needs would be addressed through many of the investments in the People’s Budget priorities, including the following:

• Increasing the minimum wage across New York State to combat rising costs of living due to inflation.

• Establishing a permanent Unemployment Bridge Program to provide economic support to excluded workers and those who do not qualify for unemployment. 

• Supporting the Access To Representation Act to ensure a right to counsel for all immigrants facing deportation and stable funding for legal services. 

• Expanding funding for the Office of New Americans to ensure proper legal support for individuals with complex immigration cases. Sustaining the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project. 

• Codifying Executive Order 26 that provides expanded language assistance to LEP populations. 

• Establishing a livable wage for human service workers to end government-sanctioned poverty wages for human services workers.

• Enacting Fair Pay for Home Care to safe-guard the health, safety, and well being of home care workers and their families.

• Expanding funding for Culturally Responsive & Sustaining Education to allow for the curation, compilation, and publication of a set of racially and culturally inclusive education resources to support teaching and learning.

• Increasing teacher diversity to better reflect the diversity of the student population.

• Expanding early childhood education to make progress towards a universal pre-K system statewide.

• Enacting Universal Childcare Act and creating a quality childcare workforce compensation program for a more holistic, culturally responsive, and accessible childcare system, and to ensure fair wages to childcare providers. 

• Introducing a New Deal for CUNY and SUNY and expanding access to career and technical education to open pathways to social mobility for working-class communities. 

• Enacting the New York Health Act and Coverage for All to expand healthcare access to all New Yorkers. 

• Ensuring diversity in the physician workforce as a key component of improving health outcomes in communities of color. 

• Increasing the number of school counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists across New York, and establishing a youth telehealth initiative to support youth mental health. 

CACF leads the fight for transformative movements towards progressive system change and racial equity within government institutions.  We are the nation’s only policy advocacy organization focused on children and families’ issues facing the Asian American and Pacific Islander diaspora (East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Southwest Asia, Central Asia, and Pacific Island regions).  CACF coordinates across a coalition of over 70 AAPI-serving community-based organizations in New York State.

We look forward to working with Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature to ensure that these NY State initiatives equitably reach and serve the diverse needs of AAPI New Yorkers.

Together, we can build resilient communities that are too powerful to ignore.

For more information, please contact Lakshmi Gandhi, CACF’s Communications and Outreach Coordinator at lgandhi@cacf.org.