During the most recent (July 12) national call on “HoUSed: Universal, Stable, Affordable Housing,” House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) joined us to discuss her “Ending Homelessness Act” and “Housing is Infrastructure Act,” two bills that, if enacted, would effectively end homelessness and housing poverty. We also heard about new eviction diversion research and resources for states and localities, heard the latest from NLIHC’s ERASE project, discussed how to advance the HoUSed campaign’s priorities through the infrastructure package on Capitol Hill, and received field updates from Utah and Washington.
Chair Waters introduced on July 16 the Housing is Infrastructure Act, which would invest $70 billion to preserve public housing and provide $45 billion through the national Housing Trust Fund to build new deeply affordable, accessible homes, and the Ending Homelessness Act, which would establish a universal voucher program, provide $10 billion to build affordable, accessible homes, enact source of income discrimination protections, and more. Chair Waters delivered a call to action urging advocates to continue pushing Congress to enact the bold, robust solutions needed to address the nation’s severe shortage of affordable, accessible housing and ensure all people have access to a safe, stable home.
Emily Benfer from Wake Forest University shared new resources for state and local eviction diversion programs, including best practices for court-based eviction prevention/diversion programs, an eviction diversion diagnostic tool, and a housing precarity risk model created by UC Berkeley. NLIHC’s Sarah Gallagher and Rebecca Yae provided updates on emergency rental assistance tracking and the End Rental Arrears to Stop Evictions (ERASE) project. Maureen Howard, a homelessness advocate and consultant in Washington state, Lauren Littlefield from Salt Lake County, and Francisca Blanc from the Utah Housing Coalition provided field updates.
NLIHC hosts national call every week. On today’s call we will be joined by HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge. Register for today’s call (Monday July 19, at 2:30 pm ET) at: https://tinyurl.com/ru73qan
Watch a recording of the July 12 call at: https://tinyurl.com/dpvwved4
View presentation slides at: https://tinyurl.com/ypu8hrsj
View NLIHC’s Housing is Infrastructure Act Fact Sheet at: https://tinyurl.com/4822wx8c
View NLIHC’s Ending Homelessness Act Fact Sheet at: https://tinyurl.com/4j22sy9d