The most vulnerable are under attack — and silence is complicity.
As Washington dismantles decades of progress in community finance and special education, we face a moral test that defines who we are as a nation.
Recently, every employee at the CDFI Fund — the federal agency that for nearly three decades helped build and finance the Community Development Financial Institution movement — received a termination notice.
In plain terms: the fund is being dismantled.
Days later, the Department of Education began issuing mass layoffs in the Office of Special Education Programs, effectively gutting the system that ensures children with disabilities receive the education they deserve.
Two different agencies. One devastating message: those who need government the most are losing it.
A War on the Vulnerable
In less than a year, two of America’s most successful equity initiatives — CDFIs and special education — have gone from bipartisan success stories to political scapegoats.
When you defund the CDFI Fund, you choke off capital to the neighborhoods banks won’t serve. When you gut special-education oversight, you abandon children whose only advocate was a federal promise called IDEA.
And when both happen in the same month, the pattern is undeniable: compassion is being written out of policy.
The Disappearing Safety Net
The CDFI Fund proved that finance could serve people, not just profit.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act proved that inclusion could be a right, not a privilege.
Now, both are on the chopping block — not because they failed, but because they succeeded in showing that the government can be a force for good.
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The Human Cost
Behind every program cut is a person left behind.
- A single mother who secured her first business loan from a CDFI when no bank would listen.
- A child with autism whose teacher depends on federally funded training to meet his needs.
- A credit union that rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina with the CDFI Fund’s help.
These are not abstractions. They are lives. And they matter.
The Test Before Us
The question now is not whether these programs will survive — bureaucracies can endure.
The question is whether we will.
Will we stand by as compassion becomes collateral damage?
Or will we raise our voices for those who no longer have a seat at the table?
Because when the most vulnerable lose their advocates in Washington, the rest of us must become their voice.
If not us, who?
If not now, when?
Judy DeLucca has worked for the $279 million-asset New Orleans Firemen’s Federal Credit Union in Metairie, Louisiana, for nearly 46 years – the past 37 as its president and CEO. She is a longtime advocate for financial inclusion, community development, and equitable opportunity for all Americans.
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