Blog

On May 5, the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety had its first public hearing on the “Paternity Establishment Amendment Act of 2022.” This amendment would make it easier to obtain court-ordered DNA testing when someone has reason to believe there was a mistake in the signing of an Acknowledgment of Paternity (AOP).

Under current law, it is difficult to undo an AOP, even when everyone agrees a mistake has been made and someone else is the child’s biological father. This often results in men being responsible for paying child support and having legal rights to children that are not their biological children, and with whom they may have no relationship.

Bread for the City’s Legal Clinic has been fighting these cases in court for years and our attorneys have witnessed the injustices and burdens on families that inaccurate AOPs can have. Our own Allison Miles-Lee provided testimony in support of the amendment during last week’s public hearing. She shares the difficult story of a former Bread for the City client who was denied his request for a court-order paternity test and lost the right to care for a  child he believed to be his own.

Bread for the City calls on all leaders at every level of government to not only condemn this act of violence, but to condemn white nationalism and the troubling and dangerously hateful rhetoric that fueled this terrorist and fuels many with public platforms even now. Along with these condemnations, we push, urgently, for not only the gun reforms that study after study have shown work to mitigate violent acts but also for long-overdue investments in Black and brown communities across America.

World Bank Group’s Community Connections Program delivers diverse funding and support to communities and local nonprofits annually. Bread for the City has been a beneficiary of this program for a number of years, and we’d like to highlight the great work of this program and the team members who help us fight poverty in the District. Read on to learn more!

“A woman’s value is often measured by what she does for others; but taking care of yourself–mentally, physically, and spiritually–is equally valuable. ” says, Melissa Palms, event organizer and Wellness Coordinator at Bread for the City.