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NEW VOICES FOR AFFORDABLE HOMES
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| Time is Running Out! Urge Elected Officials to Include Vital Housing Resources & Protections in Next Relief Package |
| There is little time left to negotiate and enact the next COVID-19 relief package. Now is the time to urge your federal elected officials to include vital housing resources and protections in the next COVID-19 relief package. Specifically: $100B for emergency rental assistance; a uniform evictions moratorium; $11.5B for homeless assistance; and at least $10B for Housing Choice Vouchers. Through the campaign’s platform, over 2,000 letters have been sent by advocates to Congress. In all likelihood, this is the last opportunity for major congressional action for many months. |
| Join an array of organizations from education, healthcare, environmental protection, civil rights, criminal justice, and others to keep the momentum going to ensure that housing is included in any final negotiated package. Please send this letter to your senators and representative and urge people within your network to do the same. To send the letter, simply type in your street address, click submit, and it automatically goes directly to your senators and representative. |
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| Children’s Defense Fund Releases New Analysis: “Housing Is a Racial Justice Crisis” |
| The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), a Steering Committee member of Opportunity Starts at Home, released a new analysis entitled “Housing is a Racial Justice Crisis.” CDF calls for robust federal housing assistance. The analysis explains why Black households disproportionately experience housing instability and homelessness, how the current pandemic is magnifying these long-standing inequities, and why Congress must immediately enact the housing provisions contained within the HEROES Act. |
| “If Congress fails to act, the harm will fall unequally on Black children and families, who are already disproportionately harmed by high housing costs, homelessness, and the devastating economic and health effects of the current pandemic,” writes Zach Tilly of CDF. “We should center our approach to housing on eliminating racial disparities, breaking down systemic racism in our housing policies, and ensuring more equitable and less segregated housing and neighborhoods so that all families have access to quality affordable housing.“ |
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| CDF is a child advocacy organization that has worked relentlessly for more than 40 years to ensure a level playing field for all children. The group champions policies and programs that lift children out of poverty, protect them from abuse and neglect, and ensure their access to health care, quality education and a moral and spiritual foundation. |
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| Campaign Partners Publish New Commentary in Academic Pediatrics |
| This month, partners of the campaign published a new peer-reviewed commentary in Academic Pediatrics that calls on pediatricians to advocate equitable affordable housing investments. Authored by experts at NLIHC and Children’s HealthWatch, the article highlights decades of research demonstrating the importance of a safe, stable, affordable home as a foundation for health from the prenatal period and across the lifespan. |
| The authors examine four domains of housing critical to positive child health outcomes: quality, stability, affordability, and neighborhoods. They describe specific housing policies and practices to ensure all children live in homes that promote healthy growth and development. In particular, the authors recommend housing investments such as expanding Housing Choice Vouchers and the National Housing Trust Fund, as well as creation of a new permanent program that would offer short-term assistance to keep people stably housed during the current economic crisis. |
| Pediatricians see first-hand the connections between housing and health and are uniquely positioned to advocate for housing policy solutions. “I know my patients need safe, affordable, stable homes to thrive,” said Megan Sandel, pediatrician at Boston Medical Center and co-lead principal investigator for Children’s HealthWatch. “The federal government is the only entity that can make housing for health available for everyone. We need strong, federal housing policies that ensure my patients and their families are able to achieve optimal health.” |
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