2025 NLIHC Housing Policy Forum

2:00 pm – 6:00 pm

State & Tribal Partners Meeting

Springwood I

Tenant Leaders Session

Atrium Ballroom

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Coffee Break

6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

State & Tribal Partners/Tenant Leaders Opening Dinner

Grand Ballroom

7:30 am – 8:30 am

Breakfast for State & Tribal Partners

Executive

Breakfast for Tenant Leaders

Atrium Foyer

8:30 am – 12:00 pm

State & Tribal Partners Meeting

Springwood I

Tenant Leaders Session

Atrium Ballroom

10:00 am – 11:00 am

Coffee Break

12:00 pm – 12:45 pm

Lunch for State & Tribal Partners

Executive

Lunch for Tenant Leaders

Atrium Foyer

1:00 pm – 2:50 pm

Opening Plenary Session w/ Nikole Hannah-Jones

Grand Ballroom

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and staff writer at The New York Times Magazine who has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice. She is the creator of the 1619 Project, a New York Times initiative that retells American history by focusing on the arrival of enslaved Africans in Virginia in 1619. She is also the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Peabody Award, and two George Polk Awards, as well as a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award. In addition to her work as a journalist, Hannah-Jones serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy, and she is the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color.

2:50 pm – 4:45 pm

Coffee Break

3:45 pm – 5:00 pm

Breakout 1: Crafting a Strategic Advocacy Campaign for State and Local Tenant Protections 

Atrium Ballroom

Highlighting cases from the 2024 case studies and our Southeast Roundtable, this session will talk about how communities built public will and momentum for advocating for tenant protections post-pandemic including just case, rent stabilization, and junk fee protections. Participants will hear from tenant organizers, housing advocates and other about their advocacy efforts and strategies for coalition building.

Breakout 2: Engaging Faith Partners in the Fight for Housing Justice

Springwood I

Partnerships between faith-based and housing groups are expanding, building a powerful coalition committed to fostering inclusive neighborhoods where everyone has equitable opportunities to thrive. Join us for an engaging cross-sector panel discussion with leading faith-based partners of the Opportunity Starts at Home campaign, as they share their experiences in advancing affordable housing solutions through this multi-sector initiative. Panelists will discuss key strategies for building strong partnerships with faith communities, highlight how faith-based groups are reshaping the narrative around housing justice, and offer innovative approaches to mobilize faith-driven advocacy in the broader movement for housing equity. Whether you represent a faith-based organization or seek to collaborate with one, this panel will provide actionable insights into the vital role faith communities play in creating lasting change. 

Breakout 3: Are you Ready? – How to Organize and Advocate After Disasters  

Sagamore Hill

What will your organization do if there’s a disaster? What will your message be? What will you need to do? This panel will cover how organizations at the local, state, and national levels can respond to climate change-driven disasters with community-driven organizing, messaging, legal work, and research to help ensure that the households with the lowest incomes are receiving the assistance they need to fully recover. Panelists will include organizers, advocates, lawyers, and researchers who have worked in and for disaster impacted communities across the country. Panelists will provide examples and best practices for how your organization can effectively respond to disaster recovery advocacy needs and host a conversation about what organizations need to do to prepare for disasters in their communities. 

Breakout 4: Community Organizing 101  

Montpelier

This session will focus on the basics of community organizing and will provide tangible tools for launching organizing campaigns around housing justice at the state and local levels. We will discuss the cycle of community organizing and its five phases: 1) base building, 2) choosing an issue, 3) research, 4) action, and 5) evaluation. Last, we will define key terms, such as power, and draw an important distinction between advocacy and organizing.   

5:30 pm – 7:30 pm  

Opening Reception 

Grand Ballroom

7:30 am – 8:30 am 

Breakfast

Grand Ballroom Foyer

8:30 am – 9:15 am 

Building Stronger Communities: Advancing the National Tenants Bill of Rights Plenary Session

Grand Ballroom  

Confirmed speakers/panelists will be announced in the coming weeks  

9:30 am – 10:30 am  

Coffee Break

9:15 am–10:45 am   

Breakout 5: Using the Tax Code to Advance Housing Solutions – Opportunities in 2025 and Beyond   

Atrium Ballroom

Congress and the White House will debate major policy changes to the U.S. tax code this year, potentially unlocking billions of dollars to address the affordable housing crisis. Learn more about the national HoUSed campaign’s top tax priorities, including the creation of a new, fully refundable Renters Tax Credit and reforms to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. Together, we will discuss the legislative opportunities in 2025 and how advocates can help ensure any tax package prioritizes housing solutions for people with the greatest, clearest needs.  

Breakout 6: How to Find & Use Data for Housing Advocacy  

Springwood I

One of the most powerful tools for housing advocacy are the stories shared by tenants with lived experience. By supplementing these stories with data and research, advocates and tenants can strengthen the messages they convey to policymakers, agencies, and other officials. In this session, members of the NLIHC Research Team will share how tenants and advocates can use public data sources to support their work, as well as guidance on how to collect data in their own communities. In addition, a panel of housing advocates will share examples of how they have used data and research to drive change in their communities.  

Breakout 7: The Road Less Traveled – Creative Advocacy Strategies for Native & Rural Areas  

Sagamore Hill

Housing needs in Native and rural communities are some of the most dire, and building the momentum for policy action for these hard-to-reach communities takes time, intention, and advocacy from all sides. Join NLIHC staff, national and Tribal partners as we explore creative solutions that Native and rural advocates have used to bring more awareness to the housing needs of their communities. Learn about efforts to boost Native voter turnout, bring federal staff to remote Alaskan villages, and navigate the balance between urban and rural homelessness.

Breakout 8: Every Year is an Election Year – Sustaining Momentum to Close the Voter Turnout Gap  

Montpelier

In “off-year” elections with low voter participation, voter turnout is especially skewed towards homeowners and high-income people, and low-income renters are severely underrepresented. To close this voter turnout gap and build the political will for policies that serve the lowest-income renters, housing and homelessness organizations must prioritize nonpartisan civic engagement every year and empower their community members to participate in elections at every level. In the 2024 election cycle, NLIHC’s nonpartisan Our Homes, Our Votes campaign piloted innovative tactics to boost voter turnout among low-income renters and people experiencing homelessness. This session will focus on lessons learned from these activities and concrete recommendations that you can implement to register, educate, and mobilize voters in 2025 and beyond.  

11:00 am – 12:00 pm   

2025 Organizing Awards

Grand Ballroom 

NLIHC is Accepting Nominations for 2025 Organizing Awards!

NLIHC's Organizing Awards recognize outstanding achievements in statewide, regional, citywide, neighborhood, or resident organizing that further NLIHC’s mission of ensuring that people with the lowest incomes have quality homes that are accessible and affordable in communities of their choice. Special consideration will be given to nominations involving tenant- or resident-centered organizing. 

Submit your nomination for an NLIHC Organizing Award by December 20, 2024, at 5 pm ET.

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm   

Lunch

Atrium Ballroom

Lunch

Executive

1:30 pm – 3:30 pm 

Breakout 9: State and Local Homelessness Solutions in the Fight Against Criminalization  

Atrium Ballroom

This session will bring together national and local partners to provide an assessment of what has been happening since the Grants pass decision. NHLC will provide and update on the decision and current trends at the state and local level related to criminalization legislation. CBPP will overview state and local housing and homeless policy levers that jurisdictions can employ and we will have a local partner in an area that is combatting the decision talk about their efforts.  

Breakout 10: Exiting Exploitation – A Discussion on Protecting Tenant Voices  

Springwood I

The importance of narrative and stories in policy advocacy cannot be understated, especially when it comes to housing policy. Over the past several years, tenants across the country have joined NLIHC during our policy forum to not only learn about the latest on Capitol Hill and from our partners, but to also connect with each other and to share their stories of lived experience and advocacy.    

As NLIHC continues the journey to uplifting and centering tenant voices in our advocacy, we must ask ourselves important questions. How should these stories be told, why, and who should be telling them? We explore the different ways stories of pain, advocacy, and triumphs can be told. We will discuss the importance of stories, how they can be extracted and exploited, and why people telling their stories is a key component of advocacy.      

Breakout 11: Accessibility & Inclusion – Housing justice is Disability Justice  

Sagamore Hill 

Housing justice that is not accessible, equitable, and inclusive of people with disabilities is not housing justice. Accessibility is not enough, and people with disabilities must be included in decision making for decent, safe, affordable housing to be truly accessible. Join national housing leaders in a discussion and workshop on activating your community in the pursuit of accessible and inclusive housing—from advocating for national legislation like the Reforming Disaster Recovery Act, to building inclusive LIHTC housing, to drafting and supporting the National Tenants Bill of Rights.  

Breakout 12: Comms Lab – Visual Storytelling  

Montpelier

Welcome to the Comms lab! Here, you’ll participate in a discussion on how to craft compelling visual narratives – coupled with visualized data – to support your advocacy efforts. Centered on creativity, accessibility, and representation, this session will provide helpful tips on how to engage and inspire your audience through visual storytelling.  

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm  

Coffee Break

3:45 pm– 5:00 pm   

Closing Plenary Session w/ Elected Officials and Generation Housing Justice 

Grand Ballroom

Confirmed speakers/panelists will be announced in the coming weeks 

5:30 pm – 8:30 pm   

Leadership Awards Reception

Atrium Ballroom 

Join NLIHC in celebrating our 2025 Housing Leadership Awards honorees: Senator Tina Smith (D-MN), Mac McCreight, Susan Thomas, and Rob Robinson. These exceptional leaders will be recognized at NLIHC’s Annual Housing Leadership Awards Celebration on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, from 5:30 to 8:30 pm at the Hilton Capitol Hill Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The NLIHC Housing Leadership Awards celebrate and honor individual leaders and organizations for their outstanding contributions to affordable housing for those most in need. 

Learn more about NLIHC's 2025 Leadership Awards honorees!

8:30 am – 4:00 pm

Capitol Hill Day

Capitol Hill Day gives advocates the opportunity to meet with their members of Congress to urge them to oppose funding cuts to affordable housing and homelessness programs, expand resources for vital programs, advance anti-racist policies, and support legislation that would improve the lives of millions of low-income people.

Final details will be announced in the coming weeks.