An annual study of foster care in the United States reveals good news and bad news – and there are newly emerging threats, both at the state and federal level. The good news: for most of the 2010s, federal data showed the number of children in foster care steadily increasing after a previous decade of decline. The reason, in part, was the opioid crisis. Now, however, the number of children in foster care is declining, while the number of homes available to foster youth is on the rise.

CHN just released another edition of the Human Needs Report. Read on for the latest on Congress’s work on spending bills, a judge’s ruling on immigration and health care, how Medicaid work requirements fared at the ballot box, efforts to expand low income tax credits, and more.

As Veterans Day approaches, hundreds of thousands of veterans struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Some 38,000 veterans were homeless on a single night in January 2018, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates. Moreover, 666,000 veterans lived in low-income households that paid more than half of their income for rent and utilities in 2017, Census data show. Low-income people with such high housing costs — what HUD calls “severe cost burdens” — often must skimp on items like food or clothing to pay for rent and utilities. They also face a growing risk of utility cutoffs, eviction, and homelessness as bills pile up.

Last month the United Nations invited Ashana Bullet and Eduardo Simas to speak at a conference entitled “Perspectives on Poverty.” Bullet and Simsas are both members of ATD Fourth World, an international non-profit organization dedicated to finding and eradicating the root causes of poverty. Bullet is a lifelong resident of New Orleans; Simas owns and manages a farm in rural Brazil. Their message: when fighting poverty, listen to the impoverished.