Promoting Effective Public Policies
In addition to providing direct service, JEVS promotes staff, client, and board involvement in shaping effective public policies on behalf of our programs and the people we serve. Our decision to engage in policy advocacy is rooted in the Jewish principles of Tzedakah (social justice) and Tikkun Olam (repairing the world). Acting individually and in collaboration with our advocacy partners, JEVS believes that part of our work in the community involves forging sustainable solutions to the broader issues underlying our clients' service needs.
Emerging Issues
>> Expanding Access to Community Services for People with Disabilities
People living with physical and developmental disabilities, behavioral health issues, and addiction want the freedom to receive services in the least restrictive (non-institutional) setting. Community-based services are cost-effective and provide for greater autonomy and quality of life for the people who receive them.
JEVS Human Services Supports:
- State and federal public policies that promote greater access, choice, and quality of community based services and end the institutional bias in funding and service delivery.
- Sufficient annual funding for providers to deliver quality services, meet the community's needs, and sustain an effective, experienced direct service workforce.
- Policies that expand the supply of adequate affordable community housing for people with disabilities.
>> Enhancing Opportunities for People Seeking Economic Self-Sufficiency
Many individuals entering the workplace after leaving public assistance continue to find it difficult to achieve economic security. Lack of skills and stagnating wages at the lower end of the economic scale have left millions of workers, including former welfare recipients, working at wages that are too low, and at jobs that are too unstable, to allow them and their families to escape poverty. Many workers—including nearly 3 million who work full-time, year round—live below the poverty line.
JEVS Human Services Supports:
- State and federal policies that allow working families to consistently afford the basics—housing, health care, food, and child care—and see real benefits to continuing and stepping up their work effort.
- Expansion of state and federal work support programs that augment the spending power of low-income working families with children. They include the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), child care subsidies, food stamps, energy assistance, and public health insurance programs.
- Investments in education and skills development. Access to education and training that helps all workers (including TANF recipients) prepare for jobs that pay a living wage and benefits and enables them to advance along career paths to sustainable higher level employment.
>> Reducing Barriers to Employment for Former Offenders
Participants in JEVS Program for Offenders as well as others who leave prison across Pennsylvania face systemic barriers to employment and often have difficulty accessing other services that would help them successfully re-integrate into their communities. Despite empirical studies documenting the positive impact employment has on reducing recidivism rates of people with criminal histories, there still remain many policies and practices that serve as barriers to achieving these goals. In many cases, state laws bar former offenders from employment because of a criminal record that may be decades old or unrelated to the position for which they are applying.
JEVS Human Services Supports:
- Reduction of legislative barriers to employment for ex-offenders. We encourage policymakers to eliminate laws that categorically ban qualified people with criminal records from employment without considering the age and nature of the offense.
- Opportunities for former offenders to expunge criminal records where appropriate, particularly for older and minor offenses where an individual has been arrest-free for a reasonable period of time.
- Prohibiting inquiries by employers about arrests that did not lead to convictions and limits on consideration of convictions after a reasonable period of time. Pennsylvania allows employers to ask about arrests that never led to conviction but prohibits them from utilizing that information when making a hiring decision.
- Development of alternative sentencing models that combine mental health and substance abuse treatment, employment, comprehensive treatment model that addresses multiple needs as an alternative to sentencing for non-violent offenders.
