Take Action! Urge Congress to Support Robust Housing Solutions
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| The campaign shared a new advocacy opportunity to call on Congress to enact the campaign’s Bipartisan Housing Policy Package. The nation’s affordable housing and homelessness crisis demands urgent action, and it is critical that Congress work to find common ground to enact legislation to help improve the lives of the nation’s lowest-income and most marginalized households.
The multi-sector impacts of housing instability should not be underestimated. For people with low incomes, unaffordable housing often forces tradeoffs between paying rent and accessing necessary resources like medical care, contributing to delayed care and an increased prevalence of chronic health conditions. Affordable housing plays a pivotal role in reducing childhood poverty and bolsters the mental, physical, and academic well-being of children. Additionally, the economic benefits of affordable housing extend to the broader community, creating jobs and increasing local government revenue.
The set of key bipartisan legislation outlined by the campaign is necessary to address the affordable housing crisis and ensure that everyone has an opportunity to thrive. The list includes the campaign’s priority bills, endorsed by the Steering Committee, and the campaign’s supporting bills which complement the campaign’s priorities.
Key Legislation for Any Bipartisan Housing Package:
Eviction Crisis Act
Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act
Reforming Disaster Recovery Act
Fair Housing Improvement Act
Choice in Affordable Housing Act
Yes In My Back Yard Act
Yes in God’s Back Yard Act
Rural Housing Service Reform Act
Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act
Advocates can take action by sending a pre-formatted letter to their Congress members urging them to support the bipartisan bill package. |
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Eviction Lab Article Explores Impact of Eviction on Kids’ Educational Trajectories
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| Eviction Lab published an article, “Consequences of Eviction-Led Forced Mobility for School-Age Children in Houston,” in Sociology of Education that explores the consequences of eviction cases on students’ academic trajectories. Using court data on eviction cases filed in Harris County, Texas between 2002 and 2016, along with Houston Independent School District educational records, the authors determined that students whose parents face eviction cases are more likely to leave the school district than students not facing eviction. Students who remained in the same school district and experienced eviction filings were more likely to have switched schools and often relocated to schools with fewer resources. The study also found that students whose families faced evictions had an increase in school absences and an increase in suspensions among students who switched schools. The results of the study contribute to an existing body of research demonstrating the consequences of eviction filings, even when they don’t lead to formal eviction judgements. |
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| Each year, nearly 3 million children risk losing their homes through the eviction process. The study’s authors aimed to fill a gap in research examining how evictions affect classrooms and children’s education. The study analyzed court data of all eviction cases filed in Harris County, Texas between 2002 and 2016 and linked these cases to educational records accessed through the Houston Education Research Consortium (HERC), a partnership between Rice University’s Kinder Institute and eight Houston-area school districts. These educational records include enrollment, attendance, disciplinary, and grade data for more than 685,000 students enrolled in the Houston Independent School District between 2002-2016. The authors linked parents’ names and addresses from the enrollment records to defendant names and addresses in eviction cases. Over 13,000 students were identified to have parents who had an eviction filed against them at least once, with nearly a quarter of students in households who were filed against repeatedly. Data analyses revealed three key findings: eviction filings put students at higher risk of switching schools and leaving the district; eviction- driven school changes tended to be to schools with lower standardized test scores, less funding per pupil, and larger shares of economically disadvantaged students; and eviction filings and school changes led to increased absences, especially during the year of the eviction case or school move. The results suggest that students facing eviction who also change schools face increased suspensions in their new schools.
The authors recommend that policymakers explore ways to provide additional eviction protections for families with school-age children, emphasizing that it is just as important to reduce eviction filing rates as it is for schools to strategize how to address problems associated with school mobility. Existing research has identified effective ways to do this, including increasing notice requirements, raising filing fees for evictions, providing legal counsel to those threatened with eviction, and providing emergency rental assistance. The “Eviction Crisis Act,” a campaign priority bill, would provide emergency, short-term assistance to help stabilize households in crisis and reduce the harm and costs associated with evictions for students and families. The bill would also create a program to fund state and local governments to expand the use of landlord-tenant community courts that offer mediation services and increase the presence of social services representatives for tenants. |
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New Study Examines the Impact of Historical Redlining on Residents’ Mental Health
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| A study published this month in Social Science & Medicine explores the impact of historic redlining practices on the contemporary housing market and how the housing market affects prevalence of poor mental health in neighborhoods. The authors examined features of today’s housing markets, including property values, home loan denial rates, and homeownership rates, in 12,047 census tracts in the U.S., and found significant indirect effects of redlining on contemporary prevalence of poor mental health. The findings suggest that properties in neighborhoods historically graded “A” are valued more today and contribute to higher contributions of wealth than in neighborhoods that received lower grades, and this exacerbates disadvantage in neighborhoods graded as “hazardous,” with downstream consequences for mental health. The indirect effect of redlining via property values was also found to be conditional on neighborhood racial makeup. The benefit to property values and its subsequent impact on residents’ mental health is greater in neighborhoods where Black residents are underrepresented.
This analysis builds on existing research linking historical redlining practices to contemporary economic, social, health, and mental health outcomes. Neighborhoods appraised by the Homeowners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930s and 1940s and graded as “hazardous” for investment and lending have higher rates of poor health and mental health outcomes compared to neighborhoods that received a favorable grade. There is little research that looks at the factors that might mediate relationships between structural racism’s indicators and health, and the authors of this study assessed whether the features of contemporary housing markets explain the established association between redlining patterns and neighborhood prevalence of poor mental health. The study also examines whether the effects of redlining on mental health differ based on the relative population of Black residents in a neighborhood. The study used data from the American Community Survey, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Database, and Center for Disease Control PLACES Project to examine features of contemporary housing markets as possible mediators of historical redlining patterns and prevalence of poor mental health.
The results of the study align with earlier research showing that redlined neighborhoods continue to have lower homeownership rates, lower property values, and higher rates of home loan denial than neighborhoods that were graded more favorably. Residents of historically redlined neighborhoods have higher rates of poor mental health and other negative health outcomes, which reinforce the long-term consequences of structural racism in housing markets on public health. Features of contemporary housing markets function as pathways connecting historical redlining to poor mental health outcomes, and these pathways are conditional on racial composition. The authors recommend that property appraisal processes be restructured to ensure that racial composition is not factored into valuation and recommend policy interventions that target investments in historically redlined areas in ways that prioritize existing residents and prevent displacement. |
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New Issue Brief from Justice in Aging on the Importance of Federal Rental Assistance for Older Adults
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| Justice in Aging, a campaign Roundtable member, released an issue brief this month highlighting the importance of federal rental assistance for older adults. The number of older adults being served by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is increasing, with households headed by adults over age 62 making up about 42% of the households that receive assistance from HUD’s major federal rental assistance programs. At the same time, older adults are increasingly experiencing homelessness, with adults over age 55 making up 20% of all people experiencing homelessness in 2024. Many older adults experiencing homelessness are losing their housing for the first time after age 50, and the key drivers for homelessness among this population are housing costs and the gap between income and rental costs. The issue brief highlights how expansion of federal rental assistance, in addition to supporting housing stability, would benefit older adult health and economic security while also supporting the ability to age in place.
Older adults make up a disproportionate amount of extremely low-income renters and often rely on social security and or/ supplemental security income (SSI) to meet their basic needs, including rental costs. Receiving housing assistance reduces financial burden and allows older adults to better meet other basic needs, like food and healthcare. The brief emphasizes that due to insufficient funding for federal rental assistance, only one in three older adults who qualifies for subsidized housing receives it, and those who qualify must face closed or multi-year long waitlists, sometimes waiting more than a decade to receive assistance. Older adults waiting for subsidized housing are at an increased risk of experiencing homelessness, which accelerates aging and raises mortality risk. Older adults experiencing homelessness frequently develop geriatric conditions typical of people 20 years older, and the median life expectancy for older adults experiencing homelessness is 65.
Federal rental assistance not only supports older adults with housing but also improves their economic security and supports aging in place. Aside from social security, federal rental assistance lifts more older adults out of poverty than other government programs. Federal rental assistance also prevents forced moves and evictions of older adults that lead to homelessness or institutionalization, as a lack of affordable housing contributes to unnecessary nursing home placement. To ensure that low-income older adults can stay housed and age with dignity in an environment that matches their needs, policy makers must protect and expand federal rental assistance. |
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Protect Federal Housing and Homelessness Funding in FY26
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| On May 2, President Donald Trump released a partial budget request for FY26 that indicated the Administration would pursue a historic 44% cut to HUD funding, including a proposed 43% cut to rental assistance compared to the previous year. The proposal would also cut funding for and restructure the Homelessness Assistance Grants (HAG) program and fully eliminate several other programs that provide vital aid to low-income communities and individuals facing housing insecurity. The president’s full budget request is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
The president’s budget request – partial or not – represents the wishes and priorities of the president and his Administration. Only Congress has the authority to determine final funding levels for federal programs. House and Senate appropriators are beginning to draft their own FY26 proposals.
Communities around the country rely on funding from HUD and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to support critical affordable housing, homelessness services, and community development projects. Despite the importance of these resources, HUD and USDA programs have been dramatically underfunded for decades, with HUD programs and staff facing unprecedented cuts this year. At current funding levels, only one out of every four households that qualifies for rental assistance receives assistance, leaving millions of renters struggling to afford housing and a record number of people experiencing homelessness. Contact your Members of Congress today and urge them to expand, not cut, investments in HUD programs in the FY26 spending bill. |
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Fact of the Month: Homelessness among transgender people has increased 217% since 2015, compared to 14.5% for cisgender people.
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