NLIHC Members from Across the Country Tell Congress to Fund Affordable Housing

Vermont’s DC delegation in action, meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders

Dozens of affordable housing and homelessness advocates attending NLIHC’s 2018 Housing Policy Forum: Building the Movement braved the DC snow storm and descended on Congress on March 21. The core messages of the 2018 NLIHC Lobby Day advocates were the importance of protecting and expanding investments in affordable housing programs for households with the lowest incomes, defeating proposals to cut housing benefits to those most in need, and ensuring equitable access to housing for all. Advocates emphasized the need to fully fund programs like Section 8 Housing Assistance, public housing, the national Housing Trust Fund, Housing Choice Vouchers, and the HOME Investments and Partnerships program. They shared experiences, like low income tenants living in public housing with deteriorated plumbing systems and warped exterior structures, to emphasize the need for increased resources for affordable housing. Advocates also addressed the harmful impacts that minimum rents and administratively burdensome and inefficient work requirements would have on the most vulnerable populations, most of whom already work or cannot work because of physical limitations. Advocates also called for full and immediate implementation of HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. The snow did not deter more than 75 advocates from visiting their House and Senate offices, armed with NLIHC data on every state and congressional district in the country and copies of recent NLIHC publications, like The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes report.