NLIHC’s State and Local Innovation team has awarded capacity-building grants to support a Southeastern Cohort of five state and local teams from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee through a combination of grant giving, technical assistance, and peer-to-peer learning. The cohort, which is comprised of state and local housing advocates, legal aid services providers, and tenant advocates, will work in collaboration to expand the number of tenant protections available to renters to safeguard against the threat of eviction and housing instability.
Housing advocates in the South face unique challenges, including limited state and local tenant protections, a lack of affordable housing for the lowest-income renters, and a growing number of jurisdictions, such as Florida, that have taken steps to implement legislation to preempt the passage of, or do away with, tenant protections for renter households. Such challenges put extremely low-income and low-income households at a greater risk of experiencing housing instability, the threat of eviction, and even an increased risk of experiencing homelessness.
These grants will provide capacity-building and support to help them: develop a community-based advocacy strategy, engage tenant leaders, conduct on-the-ground partnership development, and reach out to and educate elected officials and other stakeholders. The goal is policy reform and systems change work that supports the introduction, passage, implementation, and enforcement of tenant protections that advance racial justice and rectify the long-standing power imbalance that exists between landlords and tenants. The cohort will run from December 2024 to December 2025.
Grantees selected for the cohort will work in teams to represent their states. The grantee teams are:
Alabama: Low Income Housing Coalition of Alabama, Fair Housing Center of North Alabama, Legal Services of Alabama
Florida: Community Justice Project, Miami Workers Center, Florida Rising Together, Florida Housing Coalition
Georgia: Georgia Advancing Communities Together, Inc., SOWEGA Rising, Inc., Housing Justice League, Georgia Appleseed
Mississippi: Mississippi Center for Justice, Mississippi Housing Partnership, National Association of Social Workers – Mississippi Chapter
Tennessee: Statewide Organizing for Community Empowerment, Tennessee Renters United, Open Table Nashville, Greater Memphis Housing Justice Project, Memphis Tenants Union
Throughout the cohort year, NLIHC will work with state and local partners to advance new protections via new legislation and/or administrative changes, assess the impact of various tenant protections on preventing evictions, fight back against state preemption laws, and strengthen tenant engagement and leadership.
NLIHC’s State and Local Innovation project was launched in April 2024 to support state and local partners in: advancing, implementing, and enforcing state and local tenant protections; creating and sustaining emergency rental assistance programs; preventing the criminalization of homelessness; providing technical assistance around state housing trust funds; and supporting the advancement of housing innovations that seek to keep eviction rates down and prevent homelessness. To learn more about the State and Local Innovation project, please visit: https://nlihc.org/state-and-local-innovation