Expand Your Huddle!

As housers in the midst of an historic housing crisis, we need all the friends we can find. When the going gets hard, we need to not only work harder, but also to expand our huddle: adding more partners and supporters in order to advance our shared goals. 

Earlier this week, I was glad to see bipartisan pushback on the 40% proposed cuts to HUD’s already underfunded budget. I’ve already sent my emails urging Congress to fully fund HUD and protect housing programs in Fiscal Year 2026, and I hope you all will do the same. Tell your elected officials about the vital work you do in your communities, then reach out to your network: call on your friends, neighbors and partners to do the same. As the Fiscal Year 2026 budget process continues, our voices need to ring loudly and in unison on Capitol Hill.

The housing crisis isn’t confined to the United States, either. All over the world, people struggle to find stable, safe, affordable housing, and housers like us work and innovate to provide homes for them. We have much to learn from our international counterparts, and they have much to learn from us. That’s why we attended this year’s International Social Housing Festival in Dublin. NAHRO staff and members spoke at and participated in several sessions, toured housing developments, learned more about the Irish government’s Housing for All initiative, and met with Housing Europe, a multi-country membership group  dedicated to ensuring that “public, cooperative and social housing providers…be recognized as the backbone of national housing systems.” Learning more about housing challenges in Europe, as well as the innovative local, national and trans-national solutions being created to meet those challenges, was an inspiring and invigorating experience. During this same time, NAHRO members also traveled to London, England to learn from and share knowledge with housing providers such as The Hyde Group, which provides more than 150,000 homes and additional services provided to 350,000 residents of London and the South of England and the London Borough of Southwark Housing Department, who manage 31,000 homes and provide critical services to downtown London. One of our members’ key takeaways from the visits was the way that both organizations focused on leveraging data for critical decision making and advocacy. Watch out for more information soon in the NAHRO Monitor and the Journal of Housing and Community Development.

We also need to expand our local and national huddles. The words below NAHRO’s logo, building communities together, represent the core of what NAHRO does. We give housing and community development professionals the information, advocacy and training you need to more effectively create and maintain affordable homes in thriving communities. We also bring you together so we can learn from each other, share triumphs and challenges, and build better communities alongside each other. There’s nothing like a roomful of housers from all across the nation to inspire and energize.

That’s why I’m looking forward to our Summer Symposium in New York next month! We’ve packed inspirational guest speakers, informative concurrent sessions, useful training opportunities and intimate roundtables into a busy two days in one of the most vibrant cities in the nation. Hope to see you there!