Rebia Mixon Clay is a former real estate manager who quit her job to provide full-time care to her brother, who has cerebral palsy and is disabled. Here at SEIU, we had the pleasure of working with Rebia when she spent several months this year as one of our grassroots member lobbyists on Capitol Hill, advocating lawmakers to pass legislation to create change for working people, their families and communities.

As a home care worker in Chicago, Rebia currently receives a $9.85 an hour, her only source of income. Billions in budget cuts to critical human services programs are set to take effect on July 1st - leaving 80,000 working parents without child care, over 40,000 seniors and people with disabilities without home care and countless other families devastated by drastic cuts to the programs they depend on. In this video, Clay describes to us the potential effect on her family -- and her community -- if the budget for home health care gets lopped in half. "When you take jobs away from poor people," she said, "it's only going to create more poor people."

As the deadline for the Illinois for the state government to adopt a new revenue source or begin slashing human services continues to creep closer, pushback is increasing. On Thursday, a group of SEIU Healthcare Illinois members who provide state-sponsored child care, in-home care, veterans services and violence counseling held demonstrations with community advocates outside Illinois lawmakers' offices to show them first-hand why they ought to save the programs. Thursday's demonstrations are the first of many protests planned for coming weeks.