At the Tops market in Buffalo, New York on May 14, people were doing ordinary things.  Picking up groceries after visiting a husband in a nursing home; buying a birthday cake for a son.  We don’t often think about the ordinary people around us, about how they enrich the life of our communities.  But in that viciously cruel moment at the Tops market, ten important lives were ended – people whose days were filled with support for their families and communities.   

Rook Bazinet, at just 18 years old, experienced homelessness for the first time while working as a partner at a Starbucks in Massachusetts. The recent high school graduate would arrive at all of his Starbucks shifts between two and three hours early and stay between two and three hours late to sit in the cafe, his only opportunity for reliable internet access. Rook is one of many Americans who experience unreliable internet connection, something which the Biden Administration has begun to tackle.

In August of 2021, George Washington University law student Dylan Basescu, along with 50 or so other protesters, staged a sit-in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol protesting the end of the CDC’s moratorium on evictions. Four months later, he was evicted right in the midst of his law school finals. Dylan is among the new generation of housing advocates inspired by the growing inequality and housing crisis in this country.  

For some time now, we’ve known about many of the ways expanded, monthly Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments helped families most in need. A new Brookings Institute report now informs us of other ways families with low incomes benefited. In short: they were less likely to pursue costly, alternative financial services such as payday loans, pawn shops, and even such measures as selling blood plasma in order to survive.