NLIHC joined housing advocates and tenant leaders in Miramar Beach, Florida, at the 2025 Southern Conference on Housing and Homelessness from October 8 to October 10, 2025. The conference, hosted by the Low Income Housing Coalition of Alabama (LIHCA), underscored the deep commitment needed to ensure housing justice through innovative policy solutions, tenant leadership, and racial equity.
David Gonzalez Rice, NLIHC’s senior vice president of policy, and Nada Hussein, NLIHC’s state and local research analyst, engaged with more than 80 housing advocates from across the country through a mixture of plenary sessions, workshops, and presentations. David provided opening remarks to LIHCA’s conference attendees, highlighting how affordable housing advocates and providers can leverage their expertise to help the country address the housing affordability crisis while navigating the many crises produced by the current political environment. He emphasized that by staying true to evidence-based, equity-rooted policies and practices, NLIHC and our allies can continue our advocacy to ensure every family – especially of low income – has fair access to safe, stable, and affordable housing of their choice.
Alongside David, Nada spoke about state and local tenant protections. Tenant protections are laws, policies, and programs that seek to ensure that renters have access to the necessary legal protections to safeguard against evictions, discriminatory housing practices, and in the worst cases, homelessness. In the absence of federal level tenant protections, state and local lawmakers play a critical role in ensuring that tenants are protected at all stages of their lease terms. During Nada’s presentations, she provided an overview of ways renters can engage in the advocacy process within their communities.
LIHCA is an NLIHC state partner, representing the housing needs of renters in Alabama in order to access safe and affordable housing.
NLIHC is grateful for the opportunity to connect with housing advocates and be in community with partners like LIHCA.
Learn more about LIHCA and their conference at: https://lihca.org/