May 2018
What is Opportunity Starts at Home?
The Opportunity Starts at Home campaign is a longterm, dynamic, multi-sector housing campaign to meet the rental housing needs of the nation’s lowest income people. Various sectors are recognizing that affordable homes are inextricably linked to their own missions and priorities. Students do better. Patients are healthier. People can more readily escape poverty and homelessness. The economy is more productive. Veterans thrive in the communities they swore to defend. The formerly incarcerated can rebuild their lives. And our nation is more just and equal. It makes sense that leaders from health care, education, civil rights and many other sectors are ready to join in the advocacy to advance solutions to make homes affordable for our nation’s most vulnerable households. Check out this short video featuring senior leaders from NLIHC, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, National Association of Community Health Centers, NAACP, Children’s Defense Fund, Food Research & Action Center, National Education Association, and National Alliance to End Homelessness explaining how affordable housing deeply impacts their own sectors of work and why we must break down silos.
AN UNPRECEDENTED EFFORT: WHAT MAKES OSAH UNIQUE?
It’s well-established that America’s housing affordability crisis has reached historic heights, most negatively impacting the lowest-income households. Federal housing assistance is already chronically underfunded and currently faces unprecedented threats. Affordable housing campaigns that focus on federal policy advocacy are not new. But what makes Opportunity Starts at Home transformative is the diversity of voices that campaign is bringing to the table to advocate for those policies. Housing advocates can’t do this work alone, and many other sectors are increasingly realizing that affordable homes are inextricably linked to their own priorities. Meet the campaign’s Steering Committee, consisting of 14 leading national organizations within their respective sectors. These organizations have decided to work together to advance federal policies which protect and expand affordable housing. This means policymakers aren’t just going to hear from the housing advocacy organizations they’re used to hearing from – they’ll also be hearing from doctors, educators, anti-hunger advocates, the faith-based community, anti-poverty advocates, and more.
MUST READ ARTICLES
MARCH
• It’s Time to Broaden the Affordable Housing Movement by Mike Koprowski, National Campaign Director for OSAH
• Opportunity Starts at Home. Our Advocacy Starts Now by The National Alliance to End Homelessness
APRIL
• Opportunities for Latino Families Start at Home by UnidosUS
• A Stable, Affordable Home is a Prescription for Good Health by Dr. Megan Sandel, Principal Investigator for Children’s HealthWatch
• Child Opportunity and Stability Starts at Home by Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund
• The Fierce Urgency of Fair and Affordable Homes by Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP and Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the NLIHC
• FRAC Chat: Opportunity Starts at Home by Jim Weill, FRAC President
SNEAK PEEK VIDEO: HOW HOUSING IMPACTS OTHER SECTORS
The campaign will regularly produce new content to help further the case that housing policy impacts many other sectors. Housing policy is school policy, civil rights policy, economic policy, health policy, and more. To help illustrate this concept, please watch this short animated video which demonstrates how one specific type of housing policy (in this case, vouchers) can impact so many other areas of life.