The United States Department of Agriculture proposed a rule last month to make states enforce work requirements in their food stamps programs, after similar changes were dropped from the farm bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump.

This year the immigration debate took center stage in the United States. Stories flooded the news media all year describing scenes of children being separated from parents and migrants being taken to detention. President Donald Trump’s strong rhetoric inflamed the already emotional issue. The U.S. government enacted policies designed to show compassion to prisoners, opioid addicts, and sex trafficking victims. Several state governments changed their laws to try to help panhandlers and homeless people.

AUSTIN, Texas—Alan Graham started the Community First! Village in Austin, Texas, three years ago as a Christian alternative to the Housing First model. Housing First, a strategy widely used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, provides housing to the homeless before addressing problems like drug addiction or mental illness. Research suggests the rapid rehousing strategy does not lead to long-term housing security, but that hasn’t stopped the federal government from spending hundreds of millions of dollars on it.

On Nov. 23, Samuel Oliver-Bruno emerged from the basement of the City Well United Methodist Church in Durham, N.C., for the first time in 11 months. A small crowd of church members accompanied the Mexican national to an appointment with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), where he was arrested and later deported.

Recent government efforts to curb sex trafficking might have also caused setbacks to the effort to help victims, police and rescue groups said.

In last week’s midterm elections, three more red states voted to expand Medicaid, demonstrating that Americans are making their peace with meager healthcare.

When President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, Republicans protested the cost and the retreat from free market principles. But as years passed and no viable alternatives appeared, more became willing to accept federal funding that will swell the ranks of Medicaid recipients.

Seattle officials in September announced their decision to close a tiny house village for the homeless that allows alcohol and drug use.