Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020 Because Housing is Built with Ballots
Washington, DC - Today, the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) launches Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020, a non-partisan project to urge presidential candidates to address the affordable housing crisis and its solutions. Initially focusing on the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, and beyond, NLIHC will work with partners across the country to encourage all presidential candidates to put forward robust solutions to the nation’s housing crisis. With the housing crisis having reached historic heights, most harming the lowest-income renters, it is past time for all presidential candidates to prioritize this critical issue.
NLIHC is partnering on the Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020 project with the Polk County Housing Trust Fund (PCHTF) and Housing Action NH to conduct meetings and town halls with presidential candidates to discuss housing affordability in their states. Through a new Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020 website, NLIHC is tracking all candidates’ proposals and comments on the housing affordability crisis and sharing an Our Homes, Our Votes 2020 toolkit for NLIHC’s members, partners and allies across the country to similarly engage and capture candidate positions on ending homelessness and housing poverty in America. Fact sheets on everything from candidate engagement and town halls, to voter registration and voter education will soon be available.
The first Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020 event will be in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
What: Julián Castro Town Hall hosted by Our Homes, Our Votes, Our Iowa
When: June 15, 2019, 2:00 -3:00 p.m. CT (pre-program beginning at 1:30 PM)
Where: RAYGUN, 1028 3rd St. SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Contact: Lauren Johnson, [email protected], 515-559-4871
Other events will be announced soon, as will new partnerships to engage low-income renters and their allies in nonpartisan efforts to increase voter registration and participation.
“After decades of chronic underinvestment by Congress, it is remarkable that presidential hopefuls are now using their platforms to elevate the housing crisis for the lowest-income people and its solutions,” said Diane Yentel NLIHC president and CEO. “In part because of the severity of the crisis itself and in large part because of our collective work to create pressure for solutions, these early months of the presidential campaign have seen more attention paid to affordable housing policy than we have in entire presidential campaigns in history. This is a tremendous opportunity to build the broad-based support needed to ensure the next president, whoever it may be, prioritizes ending homelessness and housing poverty when in the White House. Through Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020, we intend to do just that.”
“As 2020 presidential candidates have launched their Iowa caucus organizing efforts, we’ve started to see that housing affordability is on the minds of all Iowans this cycle – rural and urban,” said Lauren Johnson Polk County Housing Trust Fund policy and communications coordinator. “This is a statewide issue that impacts our workforce, our education system, and our health. We want to know what plans these candidates have at the federal level to make housing more affordable and accessible in our state. As proud Iowans, we’re excited to partner with NLIHC to build on this momentum and establish housing affordability as a fundamental issue of the 2020 Iowa caucuses and the presidential election.”
“New Hampshire faces an affordable housing shortage that is impacting workforce recruitment, driving millennials out of the state and increasing homelessness,” said Elissa Margolin Housing Action NH director. “Our first-in-the-nation primary provides an ideal opportunity to engage many of the presidential primary candidates on the severity of the issue and encourage bolder supports and solutions.”
For more information on Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020, visit: https://www.ourhomes-ourvotes.org/
Follow the campaign on Twitter: @OurHomesVotes and on Facebook: @OHOV2020
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About NLIHC: Established in 1974 by Cushing N. Dolbeare, the National Low Income Housing Coalition is dedicated solely to achieving socially just public policy that ensure people with the lowest income in the United States have affordable and decent homes.
About PCHTF: The Polk County Housing Trust Fund is the comprehensive planning, advocacy and funding organization for Affordable Housing in Polk County, Iowa. Founded 23 years ago, the Trust Fund is responsible for allocating state and local funds aimed at increasing and preserving the inventory of affordable homes in Polk County. This results both in improving the lives of the people who live in them and contributing to the economic vitality of central Iowa.
About Housing Action NH: Housing Action NH is a coalition of organizations and individual members united around a common vision that everyone benefits when all Granite Staters have a safe, decent, affordable place to call home.