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Colorado 2021 Advocacy Agenda

Lutheran Advocacy Ministry-Colorado has adopted its 2021 Policy Agenda. Check out our areas of focus:
- Ending Hunger
- Improve access and usage rates for SNAP benefits for already-qualified individuals and support protection of the program on a federal level
- Encourage greater participation in food and nutrition programs, particularly for children age 0-18
- Support and collaborate with allied faith-based entities in local and regional work, including ELCA World Hunger, the Rocky Mountain Synod World Hunger Team and Bread for the World
- Poverty Reduction
- Support follow-up legislative work to implement voter-approved Proposition 118, establishing a paid family and medical leave insurance program
- Protect access to federal programs for people living in poverty
- Support reform of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights to give elected representatives fiscal authority in taxation
- Access to Housing
- Promote measures to expand and protect housing options for low-income individuals and families, particularly renters, and to extend eviction protections during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Ensure that people experiencing homelessness have the right and responsibility to access robust services and support
- Criminal Justice Reform
- Work with reform advocates on automatic record sealing and sentence commutation, with a focus on sentences with disproportionate racialized impacts
- Advocate for reduced police interaction and increased response from trained mental health professionals for those experiencing mental health crises
- Public Health
- Protect health care access as a public good and human right that should be available to everyone regardless of ability to pay, particularly follow-up care for those suffering long-term effects from COVID-19
- Support awareness of public safety in relation to firearms, and understanding firearm-involved deaths (homicides and suicides) as a major public health concern and support home safe storage measures
- Promote access to care and treatment for those suffering from opioid addiction
- Address the impacts of anxiety, depression, stress, suicidal ideation and other mental health conditions exacerbated by the pandemic, particularly among front-line health care workers and young people
- Migrants and Refugees
- Interpret and promote the sanctuary denomination decision of the ELCA Churchwide Assembly
- Support ELCA Washington Office advocacy around asylum/refugee and immigration policies and collaborate where possible with Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Services and Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains
- Caring for Our Environment
- Engage proactively with Colorado legislators (state and federal) to encourage legislation to address the root causes of the climate crisis, including greenhouse gas emissions
- Support incentive-building programs to reduce global warming and grants to local communities to build renewable infrastructure, in the model of Lutherans Restoring Creation
- Address economic implications of transitioning communities away from fossil fuel and extraction-based energy economy