This month, Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Todd Young (R-IN) reintroduced the “Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act” (S.5405) and Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Todd Young (R-IN), reintroduced the “Eviction Crisis Act” (S.5535). Both bills were developed and championed by the Opportunity Starts at Home campaign, which worked closely with the bills’ sponsors. The reintroduction of these pieces of legislation marks a significant milestone for the campaign in advancing its policy agenda.

The Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act would create an additional 250,000 housing vouchers specifically designed for low-income families with young children to expand their access to well-resourced neighborhoods with high-performing schools, strong job prospects, and other opportunities. This legislation would significantly reduce homelessness among families with young children, as well as substantially decrease the number of children growing up in areas of concentrated poverty. Learn more about the Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act here.

The Eviction Crisis Act sustains tools to help end the nation’s continuing eviction crisis. Among various other promising provisions, the legislation includes the creation of an Emergency Assistance Program to test, evaluate, and expand proven interventions to help low-income households facing housing instability due to an unexpected economic shock. The Emergency Assistance Program is a permanent program – funded at $3 billion annually – to help stabilize households experiencing an economic shock before it causes instability and homelessness, which often require more prolonged, extensive, and expensive housing assistance. Learn more about the Eviction Crisis Act here.

Take Action!

The Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act  and the Eviction Crisis Act are important and historic bipartisan efforts that, if enacted, would dramatically improve the life trajectories of low-income households. Send letters to your federal elected officials today urging them to support the bills.

New Policy Briefs and Podcast Episode with Children’s HealthWatch

Children’s HealthWatch, in collaboration with the campaign, developed a two-part policy brief series examining housing as a foundation for child health and well-being. The campaign also released a companion podcast episode, “Housing Stability and Health Equity for Children and Families,” featuring Dr. Megan Sandel, Co-Lead Principal Investigator at Children’s HealthWatch, and Charlotte Bruce, Children’s HealthWatch’s Director of Policy. Dr. Sandel and Charlotte Bruce discuss the new briefs, the history of Children’s HealthWatch and the campaign’s partnership, why affordable housing matters to healthcare providers, and how housing advocates can best partner with healthcare providers and public health leaders.

The first brief explores how housing instability and eviction affect children from pregnancy through young adulthood, deepen health inequities, and generate avoidable costs while outlining evidence-based federal solutions to help families remain stably housed. The second examines how proposed cuts, eligibility restrictions, work reporting requirements, time limits, and weakened tenant protections could further destabilize families and harm children’s health. Together, the briefs make the case for sustained federal investment in safe, stable, and affordable housing.

Rooted in substantial research on the topic, the campaign and Children’s HealthWatch support solutions that would reduce housing instability and homelessness including those that:

• Bridge the gap between rents and income so every low-income household can access the support they need to thrive in the community of their choice.
• Increase the supply of housing affordable, available, and accessible to low-income households.
• Stabilize households by providing emergency rental assistance to avert housing instability and homelessness.

Children’s HealthWatch is a founding member of the campaign, and safe, affordable housing is foundational to the organization’s mission because of the profound impact it has on child health and development. In the podcast episode, Dr. Sandel shares examples of patients in her clinical practice whose poor health outcomes were the direct result of unstable and unaffordable housing. When families had access to housing stability, their child’s health improved dramatically. Charlotte Bruce also shared best practices for housing advocates to build effective partnerships in the health sector, including making partnerships concrete by working together to identify the problem, a specific policy solution, and what each partner can contribute.

The policy briefs and the companion podcast episode provide further evidence of the policies elected officials can advance to prevent eviction and homelessness. Paired with significant investments in affordable, equitable housing programs, bold legislation is urgently needed to respond to the housing crisis and improve health over a lifetime.

Survey Opportunity From the Institute for Human-Animal Connection

The Institute for Human-Animal Connection, a center at the University of Denver that conducts scientifically rigorous research to improve the overall well-being of humans, animals, and the environment, is seeking survey responses from housing service providers, other social service providers, and animal welfare providers to understand what resources are currently being provided to tenants and client-reported barriers to accessing or maintaining rental housing with their pets. Survey results will be used to improve coordination between housing and animal welfare organizations.

The lack of access to affordable, pet-inclusive housing is consistently cited as one of the top reasons why tenants, especially low-income tenants, must separate from their pets. This survey’s purpose is to understand the resources that organizations may be providing tenants with pets and/or the barriers that clients experience related to accessing or keeping rental housing with their pet. Information gained from the survey will inform both programmatic and advocacy goals. The survey is open to all organizations that support clients, regardless of whether they currently include programs supporting tenants with pets. Respondents whose organizations do not offer pet-related services can indicate this in the survey.

Examples of pet-related services for tenants include:

• Pet rent, fee, or deposit assistance
• Assistance accessing emotional support animal letters
• Pet food or vouchers for free veterinary care
• Housing navigation assistance to help a tenant with a pet locate housing
• Landlord conflict mediation related to a tenant’s pet

The National LGBTQ Institute on Intimate Partner Violence released a report, “A Place to be Safe: Housing Solutions for LGBTQ+ Survivors,” which draws from expert key informant interviews and a review of research on emerging housing practices for LGBTQ+ survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) to identify key takeaways to inform policy and practice.

The report comes at a time when federal protections for LGBTQ+ survivors, in particular transgender survivors, are at risk of removal, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has halted all federal enforcement actions of the Equal Access Rule (EAR), which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. While the current political environment encourages harm, discrimination, and criminalization of people experiencing homelessness and LGBTQ+ people, the report emphasizes that domestic violence leaders can provide the inclusivity, support, and healing that LGBTQ+ survivors deserve and need.

WIndicator, a short-form series from the University of Wisconsin-Madison that reviews data surrounding issues relevant to Wisconsin communities, shared an article, “The Impact of Housing Financial Stress and Food Insecurity on Rural Health,” examining how housing cost burdens and food access shape rural health outcomes. The authors first demonstrate an association between housing insecurity, food insecurity, poverty, and rural health at the national level, and then draw from 32 interviews with residents of 17 Wisconsin counties to further explore the associations within the state. The interviews reveal how fewer food options in rural areas, rising grocery prices, and stigma around housing and nutrition assistance result in households cutting back on nutritious foods in response to rental cost burdens, which directly impacts health.

Are you a part of a national organization interested in cross-sector partnership? Join representatives from over 130 multi-sector organizations, including housing, education, healthcare, civil rights, anti-poverty, seniors, faith-based, anti-hunger, veterans, LGBTQIA+, and more on the campaign’s Roundtable. If you are interested in the Roundtable, please fill out our interest form and and feel free to share it with other national organizations that may want to get involved.