The Opportunity Starts at Home multi-sector affordable homes campaign is pleased to announce a new state partner, The Housing Network of Rhode Island (HNRI), has joined the campaign. HNRI was recently selected through the campaign’s “Endorsement Application,” which enables state-level organizations pursuing multi-sector efforts focused on housing policy to earn a formal endorsement from the national campaign.
As a new state partner of the national campaign, HNRI is working to broaden its state housing coalition to the healthcare, education, civil-rights, and anti-poverty sectors, among others. These multi-sector partnerships will be leveraged to influence national policymakers representing the state to advance more robust and equitable federal housing policies. In its application, HNRI demonstrated a strong track record of bringing non-housing groups into housing advocacy and a readiness to engage its federal elected officials around the campaign’s national policy priorities.
HNRI has served over the past two years as the backbone organization of the “Homes RI” initiative, a cross-sector effort focused on raising awareness about the importance of affordable homes and pushing for bold policy solutions. The Homes RI initiative has involved over 200 individuals representing close to 80 organizations from across the state, each with a unique perspective on the lack of fair access to and supply of affordable homes.
“Over the last several years, the Housing Network of Rhode Island and multi-sector partners involved with Homes RI have been working hard to advance the affordable housing agenda at the state and local level, and building out our coalition,” said Melina Lodge, HNRI executive director. “We are thrilled to be joining other states doing similar work as part of a national campaign and are excited to learn from our peers and contribute to the conversation.”
HNRI joins the campaign’s existing state partners in California, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, and Utah. As the newest partner, HNRI will participate in peer-to-peer learning with campaign members in the other states and will gain access to resources, networks, and technical assistance from the national campaign.
“We are thrilled to welcome the Housing Network of Rhode Island as a partner of the Opportunity Starts at Homecampaign,” said National Campaign Director Mike Koprowski. “Together, we will build a broad and diverse movement in every corner of the country to push for more robust and equitable federal housing policies.”
Read more about HNRI on the campaign’s website.