How to embed two views into a block
It seems like instead of rendering the views programmatically you could also leverage the Views "Attachment" display .  The allows you to attach a view to another display, in other words render one view after another.  The "block_1" display of the view you posted above would be the main view displayed as a block, and then you would change the "block_2" display to an attachment and configure the settings similar to the image below.



This would eliminate the need to create custom code to display both views in a block.