Advocate

Stay informed: Bi-weekly Briefings During Session, every other Thursday at 4:30pm, by conference call or webinar. Weekly Perspectives Emails - missed one or new to our email list, catch up here. Communication Skills for Advocacy It is important to remember that in all communications with elected officials and their staff, be sure to introduce yourself, let them know if you are a constituent, provide affiliation information and a mailing address so that your officials can respond to you. The most appropriate strategy may change depending on the timing of the communication:  a general rule of thumb is that the shorter…

Ballot Guide Nov 8, 2016

Being a Justice Advocate in the Voting Booth: Ballot Measure Guide for the General Election, 2016 On November 8, 2016, Missouri voters have the opportunity to pass or defeat five proposed amendments to the Missouri Constitution and one statute change via petition initiative. The General Assembly’s long-standing failure to address Missouri’s outdated, unfair, and inadequate revenue system is at the root of several measures. View a printable PDF. Here is a summary of these six ballot measures and concerns that relate to justice: Amendment 1 – We urge a YES vote. This is the fourth time since 1984 that Missouri…

Becoming an Effective Advocate: Part One

Question: What about those “form letter” emails? As a social justice advocate, you, like me, probably belong to several groups that ask you to click on a link so that they can send an automatic email from you to an elected official. You may wonder: Does this method work to influence legislators? The answer is yes and no. Point and click advocacy can work if: The emails come from inside the elected official’s district (and show the writer’s name and address). The volume of form emails is so great that it draws the attention of the elected official. The organization…

Bill Tracking

The 2019 Legislative Session begins on January 9, but prefiling began December 3, 2018. Here are the bills we're tracking so far this session, categorized by these 6 issue areas: Affordable Housing & Homelessness (AHH) Criminal Justice (CJ) Economic Justice (EJ) Health & Mental Health (H&MH) Human Rights (HR) Hunger (on same PDF as EJ&H)  

HIV Criminal Law Modernization 2019 Pre-filing Press Conference

On December 3, 2018 Representative Holly Rehder (R-Sikeston) called a press conference to announce the pre-filing of multiple bills aimed at harm reduction and benefitting the public health. She was joined by a representative of Rep. Tracy McCreery (D-Olivette) who also filed a companion bill to modernize HIV-specific criminal statutes. The document bank below contains public statements and supporting documents included in the press packets distributed at the press conference. Follow each bill by clicking HB 166 & 167. Follow the MO HIV Justice Coalition on Twitter and Facebook @MOHIVJustice or contact at mohivjustice@empowermissouri.org or 417.425.6251.

MO School Breakfast Report (2016-17)

Printable PDF of the Missouri School Breakfast Report. Printable PDF of the Tables.

Poverty and Progress: The State of Being Poor in Missouri and New Threats Ahead

On November 6, 2017 Empower Missouri and the Coalition for Human Need released a report entitled Poverty and Progress: The State of Being Poor in Missouri and New Threats Ahead. The whole report can be found here Poverty and Progress Report. As the report states: We Can – and Must – Continue to Make Progress for the Millions Still Struggling We can – and should – do more to further reduce poverty for the millions of Americans still struggling. To achieve this goal, Empower Missouri and the Coalition on Human Needs recommend the following actions for Congress and President Trump: Reject cuts…

Poverty Snapshot 2018

795,000 PEOPLE REMAIN IN POVERTY, WITH 1.9 MILLION NEAR POOR Many working families struggle to make ends meet, while threats to SNAP, housing and Medicaid could increase hardship While poverty declined in Missouri from 14 percent in 2016 to 13.4 percent last year, large numbers of low-income households paid so much for rent that they had little left over for other expenses. More than half (56.1 percent) of Missouri residents earning less than $20,000 were spending more than half their income on rent in 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. More than one in three (37.7…

Report: How much does it cost to be poor?

September 20, 2016 Our national partner, the Coalition on Human Needs (www.chn.org), just released a new report The High Cost of Being Poor Empower Missouri continues to fight for the proposals outlined in this report on the state level and supports the efforts of the Coalition on Human Needs in their national efforts. The new Census Bureau data was just released this past week and the Coalition on Human Need used that data to put together this important report on the findings. In the report ,you will find data that shows some positives and some negatives. Highlights of the report include:…

Report: Segregation in St. Louis: Dismantling the Divide

Segregation in St. Louis: Dismantling the Divide is the product of a collaborative partnership involving ArchCity Defenders, Ascend STL, Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council (EHOC), Empower Missouri, For the Sake of All, Invest STL, and Team TIF with funding from the Missouri Foundation for Health and Wells Fargo. The report presents an overview of more than a century of federal, state, and municipal policies, real estate practices, and development strategies that have kept far too many of the St. Louis region’s residents segregated in neighborhoods with less opportunity to advance economically and fewer resources to support health and…