Raise Your Voices

As we all know, the White House budget released last month contains devastating cuts to affordable housing and community development programs: it zeroes out the Capital Fund, eliminates the CDBG and HOME programs, and cuts the Operating Fund by 44 percent. This is in addition to the weakening of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit that resulted from the 2017 tax reform bill. Last year, the President released a similar budget proposal and Congress did not adopt it. Thankfully, Congress allocated more sensible – but still not adequate! — funding for our programs last year and will probably do so again this year. However, we must still push back against this dangerous de-prioritization of affordable housing and community development.  

Now more than at any other time in our 85-year history, is the time for us to come together and let our collective voices be heard loud and clear on Capitol Hill.  The proposed budgets cuts will impact us all — and some more severely than others. We have to step up our advocacy efforts with local, state and national officials to drive home the point that we cannot operate responsible housing programs without adequate funding and a federal commitment to serve low- and very-low-income families and individuals.   

NAHRO has a variety of tools and resources to assist member agencies in your advocacy efforts. Here are just a few of them:

• The Advocacy and PR Toolkit, an online collection of videos, articles and Frequently Asked Questions focused on how to create effective advocacy and public relations campaigns;
• The NAHRO Advocacy Center, which allows you to customize and send pre-written letters on important affordable housing and community development issues to your Congressional representatives with the click of a button;
• The NAHRO Legislative and Regulatory Agenda, an informative yearly roadmap of our policy and budget priorities and an excellent tool for Congressional outreach; and of course
• Our yearly Washington Conference, which is dedicated to legislative and regulatory outreach. This year, we’ll be holding it from April 22-24 at the Crystal Gateway Marriot – you’ll receive updates on congressional and HUD activities, budget perspectives, the Washington Update and advocacy training sessions to help you be at your best when you visit your elected representatives on Hill day!

Many of you are already reaching out to your elected officials – thank you very much for your efforts! I know it’s difficult to take the extra time and make the extra effort in an already overflowing schedule to write to or call your Congressional representative, but there is no better way to help them understand the grave and possibly irreparable harm that insufficient federal funding will do to our neighbors and our communities. We, who work with them and serve them, must also speak up for them. We are all housing leaders, and leadership requires us to speak up during trials and crisis. Now is our time to make an IMPACT with our voices and actions.  

I’d like to especially thank Metta Holman, Executive Director of the Housing Authority of the City of Clarksville and the Housing Authority of Dover (Arkansas), for sharing with NAHRO the letter that she and Clarksville Board of Commissioners Chairman Wilma Harris co-signed and recently sent to their elected officials. In it she talks about some of the residents she serves – a single mother in nursing school, a Vietnam veteran, a widow whose home was foreclosed, a formerly-homeless 62-year-old woman on SSI, and others whose lives are hugely improved by the housing she provides. She then shows how eliminating the Capital Fund and reducing the Operating Fund would wreak havoc on their reserves, lists much-needed repairs and upgrades that would go undone, and invites her elected officials to ask questions or visit her buildings to learn more about her work firsthand. 

Again, thank you Metta, for raising your voice with your detailed and heartfelt letter. I hope your Congressional representative reads it and understand the breadth and necessity of the good work you and your colleagues do in your community. 

I look forward to seeing you all in Washington as we collectively advocate for increased funding for our programs so we can fulfill our congressional mandate of providing safe, decent and affordable housing and improving the quality of life in our communities.