To NLIHC partners, allies, and friends:

Today, the president will sign a scaled-down reconciliation bill that, while making important investments to address climate change and lower medical bills, fails to respond to the country’s growing housing and homelessness crisis in any meaningful way. Despite housing being a key driver of inflation, the “Inflation Reduction Act” doesn’t address limited housing supply, skyrocketing rents, or increased homelessness, a disappointing and shortsighted decision that leaves struggling renters and people experiencing homelessness to suffer from continued inaction.

This, despite the tremendous efforts of all of you – NLIHC’s partners and allies throughout the country and in Congress. For the last 17 months, your indefatigable advocacy has been inspirational and effective. As we worked together to uphold the federal eviction moratorium, create a new national infrastructure to get emergency rental assistance quickly and equitably to the tenants most in need, and enact or implement over 150 new state and local renter protections, we simultaneously pushed members of Congress – through both our HoUSed and Opportunity Starts at Home campaigns – to provide funding for needed long-term solutions to the housing and homelessness crisis in each iteration of the reconciliation bill.

Our advocacy on the reconciliation bill began in the spring of 2021, when President Biden proposed $100 billion for affordable housing. It was a good start but wasn’t enough – together, we pushed for more. President Biden responded, doubling his ask for housing, with most of the requested funds targeted to programs that serve people with the lowest incomes. Congressional champions like Chairs Maxine Waters and Sherrod Brown, Congressman Ritchie Torres, and others fought with us to increase the proposed funding to more than $300 billion – a package of spending that would have set our country on a path towards universal rental assistance and preserved and expanded public and other deeply affordable housing. When negotiations necessitated cuts to the larger bill, we were there – with our congressional champions – to make sure that critical housing investments remained in the bill.

Ultimately, our collective advocacy helped ensure that Build Back Better passed through the House with $150 billion in funding for housing – an amount that would have been the largest single federal investment in safe, stable, affordable homes for the lowest-income people in our country’s history. As a movement and as a country, we have never been so close to bringing about the kind of transformative investment that is necessary for achieving housing justice. And our collective advocacy is what made it possible.

It was right within our reach – but for one Democrat standing in the way. Senator Joe Manchin ultimately rejected Build Back Better and, while not having any specific objections to funding for affordable housing, rewrote a bill that excluded housing investments. All other Democrats had little choice but to accept, given the other important investments included in the new bill.

Our collective advocacy made a difference, nonetheless. Because of our hard work, we are that much closer to the finish line the next time we create a window of opportunity. Together, we moved the Democratic Party’s stance on affordable housing to one that is much more ambitious, more willing to call for and fund solutions on the scale necessary, and more focused on solutions that are deeply targeted to the lowest-income people. For the first time ever, we have a president and HUD secretary who frame housing as a human right and who have committed to achieving universal housing vouchers and ending homelessness. And we have built Republican support for many of our solutions – support that, if not always evident in Congress, is apparent throughout the country, as indicated by our public opinion polls.

But as pandemic protections expire and emergency resources are depleted, low-income renters are struggling more than ever – with rising inflation, skyrocketing rents, eviction filing rates that are reaching or surpassing pre-pandemic averages, and, in many communities, increasing homelessness. Every $100 increase in median monthly rent is associated with a 9% increase in homelessness. Last year, monthly rents increased on average by 14%, or nearly $200, nationally. In some cities, rents rose by as much as 40%.

If Congress can’t – or won’t – act, then President Biden must. We are calling on the entire Biden administration to take quick and decisive action to protect the lowest-income renters from exorbitant rent hikes and to get people experiencing homelessness to safety, even as we continue to push Congress to enact essential long-term solutions.

I have long said that the only thing we lack to end homelessness and housing poverty is political will – and the pandemic proved it. When our movement for housing justice saw the dangers the pandemic posed, we aligned with a clear focus: to protect struggling renters and people who were homeless, to save lives and keep people stably housed. And we did. And when government at all levels recognized the emergency and the need, it acted and funded solutions on a scale unlike any in our lifetimes. Together, in just two years, we achieved what we once would have considered impossible.
 
Today, as the immediate opportunity to advance toward our goals recedes, we cannot stop or slow our efforts. We must continue building political will and making progress, together. If the challenges seem insurmountable, or you are tempted to feel like we can’t or we won’t, remember that we did. We achieved the unimaginable, together. We did the impossible. Together, we can – and will – do it again.
 
Thank you for your advocacy, for all your hard work – day in and day out – to end homelessness and achieve housing justice. Thank you for leading in your communities, for fighting with us. Most of all, thank you for believing. You are an inspiration.