Yesterday evening the White House hosted a conference call discussing programs that help vulnerable populations identified in the President’s budget. Here are some highlights by department:

Agriculture: $1bil per year for child nutrition, outreach to enroll more seniors in SNAP
Health & Human Services: Nurse home visitation, “promise neighborhoods”, increase LIHEAP funding
Housing & Urban Development: fully fund housing voucher program, capitalizing the Affordable Housing Trust Fund at $1bil initially, fully funding Community Development Block Grants
Justice: Prisoner re-entry programs, funding for the Second Chance Act
Labor: Unemployment insurance extended benefits program, transitional jobs, career pathways, job training for ex-offenders
Social Security: Increase in administrative funding to reduce backlog
Treasury: Making Work Pay and Child Care tax credits made permanent
Cross-cutting issues: reform asset tests in means testing, reduce the impact of cap & trade on low income individuals.

So what happens next? The Office of Management and Budget will continue to develop a more detailed proposal, which will be released in April and will serve as a starting point for congressional consideration of the budget resolutions and appropriations bills. Meanwhile, the budget committee will begin hearings to determine overall spending levels. We should have much more information in the coming weeks and months, and there will be lots of opportunities for advocacy. Stay tuned…

If you want to learn more about the budget process, how and when to engage in the process, and how to be most effective, attend the “Budget 101” session at the Human Services Institute in Cleveland March 13.