Editors note: Crystal Sanchez gave this talk at a Poor People’s Campaign ‘Moral Monday’, part of the 2025 campaign against the budget cuts [a ‘moral witness stand against a budget that destroys people’], held recently in Sacramento, where she is President of the Sacramento Homeless Union and Western Regional Co-Director of the National Union of the Homeless.
Today, I’m not speaking as a distant community leader—I’m here as someone who’s liv ed this struggle firsthand. I know what it means to fight for survival, to worry every day about feeding my family and keeping a roof over our heads. I’ve slept in places no one should call home, lined up at food banks, and watched my brothers and sisters get pushed aside by a system that was never built for us. Medicaid, food assistance, and housing support have always been scraps—a bandage on a wound that never stops bleeding called poverty. Now, even that thin bandage is being ripped away.
Those scraps—Medicaid, a little food, a roof over our heads—are what keep us alive. They call it “help,” but for us, it’s the line between life and death. Take those scraps away, and you’re not just taking away support—you’re taking away our ability to survive.
On May 22, House Republicans advanced a bill designed to tear away what little protection we have left. They want us invisible, silent, suffering in the shadows. But let me be clear: I’m not just fighting for myself. As the Western Regional Co-Director of the National Union of the Homeless and President of the Sacramento Homeless Union, I am your neighbor, your family, your comrade in this fight. I see and fight alongside those still battling poverty and homelessness every day—my sisters and brothers, right here in our streets. I refuse to let them or their voices be erased.
Here’s what this cruelty looks like:
13.7 million of us could lose Medicaid. That’s our babies, our elders, our sick, our disabled—left with nothing.
11 million will lose food stamps, including four million children. They want our kids to go hungry.
4.5 million children will lose the Child Tax Credit, and 17 million more are already denied it because their families are too poor.
When you’re forced onto the street, this system doesn’t just turn its back—it builds walls to keep you there. It criminalizes our existence and punishes us for trying to survive. There’s no ladder out, only locked doors and handcuffs. This bill doesn’t just create homelessness—it ensures those who fall will never get up, stripping away dignity, hope, and humanity. It’s designed to break us mentally and spiritually, to tear apart the bonds that hold our communities together. This administration isn’t just failing us—it’s waging war on our minds, our families, and our future. If this bill passes, the damage will echo for generations.
Don’t be fooled—these aren’t just numbers. These are mothers, fathers, elders, neighbors, and friends. These are our brothers and sisters. I hear their stories every day because I live this reality and stand shoulder to shoulder with them. I’m not fighting from a distance—I’m right here with them.
We are not powerless, and we are not alone. We demand Congress protect and expand Medicaid, food assistance, and housing support. Our so-called representatives have the power and platform—we demand they use it to defend our people.
Let’s be clear about what’s at stake:
17 million children—our future—could lose access to the $2,000 child tax credit.
$1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, with cruel new work requirements. Fourteen million lose health coverage. Three million families lose food.
“Savings” for the government mean misery for us.
In California, the knife cuts even deeper:
Medicaid funding could drop by $9.8 billion a year—a cut of 11 percent. That means up to 1.9 million Californians lose coverage.
SNAP changes force the state to pay billions more, county budgets are gutted, and nearly 900,000 more of us lose food.
For our elders, the bill tosses a worthless tax deduction while breaking the promise to end taxes on Social Security. Our seniors deserve justice, not crumbs.
Students get crushed too. No more subsidized loans, no more deferments—just heavier debt.
Every time they add more red tape and impossible requirements, they’re telling us and our brothers and sisters that we don’t matter.
They call this “fiscal responsibility.” We know what it is: a war on the poor, the working class, the vulnerable. They want us to pay for a crisis we didn’t create.
But we will not beg. We will not bow. We’re not asking for charity—we are demanding justice. We need a safety net that lifts us up, not one that lets us bleed out on the streets.
If you’re tired of being stepped on, if you’re ready to fight for a real future, then rise up! Stand tall! Make your voice so loud they can’t ignore us! Stand with the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign. Stand with the National Union of the Homeless. I am fighting with my people—with all of us. This is our time. This is our fight.
They have never taken care of us—but we take care of each other. We show up, we feed each other, we fight for one another, and we refuse to be forgotten.
Shut down this bill! Shut down this administration!
No justice, no peace! Shut it down!
Let’s rise up together and take back what’s ours!
Crystal Sanchez is with the Sacramento Homeless Union.
