Plenary speakers at NLIHC’s 2013 Housing Policy Conference offered attendees rich and substantive content that was inspiring, sobering, and motivating.Melissa Harris-Perry got everyone’s attention during her provocative, rousing keynote address that opened the conference. Dr. Harris-Perry, a professor of political science at Tulane University and host of MSNBC's “Melissa Harris-Perry Show,” spoke about inequality, the politicization of race and gender, and the nation’s current and future struggles. Dr. Harris-Perry told the crowd that, while unemployment is high and times are tough, life in America is harder for some than for others. “I come from a community where 10% unemployment would be time for a block party,” Dr. Harris-Perry said. Regarding wealth in America, she made clear that black women are rearing their children without the financial safety net necessary to prevent one bad life event from causing disastrous consequences. Dr. Harris-Perry supplied data that shows that poor whites have more in common with poor blacks and Latinos than with wealthy whites, creating potential for interracial coalitions around closing America’s wealth gap. Dr. Harris-Perry also said we must ask ourselves where we will go in our next struggle, and that we must be clear about stating both our problems, and the solutions we seek. She recalled the great number of times on her MSNBC show when only problems were discussed. “To have someone who can name the solution was extraordinary,” Dr. Harris-Perry said, referring to NLIHC President and CEO Sheila Crowley’s appearance on the show in December. Dr. Crowley, responding to a question about homelessness, said there is a solution to homelessness and it is the National Housing Trust Fund. “The affordable housing trust fund is a real solution,” Dr. Harris-Perry told the conference crowd.United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) Director Barbara Poppe delivered the Tuesday lunchtime plenary address, which was sponsored by the Home Depot Foundation. She opened on a personal note, acknowledging her husband, honorary NLIHC board member and former board chair Bill Faith, saying, “the quest for funding the NHTF is part of our family tradition for too many years to count, and I would like to get this over with and get the NHTF funded so we can move on to other things.”Ms. Poppe delivered greetings from HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Eric Shinseki, who is also the Chair of USICH for the year. Ms. Poppe discussed USICH’s efforts, in conjunction with other federal agencies, to meet the Administration’s goal of ending homelessness among veterans by 2015. Ms. Poppe said that thanks to investments on the part of Congress in the HUD-VASH program, homelessness among veterans has declined by 18% since 2010. Ms. Poppe also said that changes made through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have made unprecedented improvements to federal policies and programs that are part of the effort to end homelessness. Ms. Poppe said the ACA provided a new set of innovations for health care delivery and housing. “So I ask you today—isn’t it time that we had an NHTF?” said Ms. Poppe. Ms. Poppe said the NHTF could be the game changer for housing policy today. “We had a game changer with the ACA, now we need one with the NHTF,” said Ms. Poppe. “We need to talk about what we know about how affordable housing improves health while lowering health care costs, how affordable housing increases public safety and reduces crime and recidivism, how affordable housing creates jobs and improves neighborhoods and property values, how it stabilizes and strengthens families and improves children’s educational outcomes.”Ms. Poppe also urged the advocates to recognize current federal budget challenges when making the case for getting the NHTF funded. Ms. Poppe said the case for the NHTF must be made in terms of budget and cost-savings, not just in terms of morality and common sense. She also suggested “triple aim” messaging for funding the NHTF, with the three objectives of the program being to improve lives, build neighborhoods, and create jobs. Ms. Poppe emphasized the importance of stakeholder collaboration in getting the NHTF funded through “collective impact,” a term used to “describe the success that is possible when key actors from different sectors set a common goal to solve a complex problem, and work in a structured process to pursue mutually reinforcing actions towards that goal, and routinely measure progress against that goal using data, and adjust their efforts,” said Ms. Poppe. “The good news is that across the country, communities are beginning to better organize themselves to create collective impact on homelessness—to be united for homes.”Ms. Poppe ended with a call to action to capitalize the NHTF, “We need Housing Now! Together we can solve homelessness. We are ‘United for Homes.’”Demystifying the federal budget, understanding sequestration and continuing resolutions, and opportunities for new money for affordable housing were covered by the members of a plenary panel on the federal budget held on the second morning of the conference. Panel members were NLIHC President and CEO Sheila Crowley; Nan Roman, President and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness; Debbie Weinstein, Executive Director of the Coalition on Human Needs; and Melissa Quirk, Senior Policy Analyst at NLIHC. Ms. Crowley presented an overview of the federal budget, explaining mandatory funding, discretionary funding, revenue, and tax expenditures. She cited the mortgage interest deduction in comparison to the HUD budget. Ms. Weinstein reviewed the background and current information on sequestration. She discussed the across-the-board cuts the Administration began implementing on March 1, as well as the funding restrictions of sequestration that will continue in FY14 and the eight fiscal years beyond. Ms. Weinstein described the major impact that these cuts will have on a range of programs that serve the poor, including housing. She urged audience members to advocate to end sequestration by collecting and raising up the stories of those low income families who will be impacted by the across-the-board cuts in FY13. Ms. Quirk reported on the FY13 continuing resolution (CR) and the FY14 budget process (see article elsewhere in Memo). She described an outlook for FY14 where affordable housing funds continue to be restricted on the discretionary side of the budget. This makes seeking funding for the NHTF on the mandatory side of the budget a critical advocacy strategy in FY14. She discussed the key stages in Congress’s development of the FY14 budget during which advocates should weigh in with their Members of Congress. Ms. Roman described the development of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Housing Commission report and the Commission’s dialogue on rental housing needs (see Memo, 3/1). She emphasized that unprecedented bipartisan agreement was reached on the necessity to assure housing assistance for every extremely low income household and to pay for it with reform of the mortgage interest deduction. Ms. Crowley credited Ms. Roman as the commissioner responsible for the report’s focus on rental housing for the poorest households.