We are less than two months away from Election Day, and there is much that can be done to boost voter registration and turnout among low-income renters. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has been engaged through the Our Homes, Our Votes 2020 campaign that provides tools and resources to housing organizations like ours who want to be sure that residents are prominently included in the November election.

One project within Our Homes, Our Votes: 2020 has particular significance to groups like ours who operate supportive housing: the Housing Providers Council. This effort recognizes that housing providers have a unique role and important connection to the subsidized residents who should be recognized as a large, active voting bloc.

The goal of the Housing Providers Council is to provide leading affordable housing organizations with tools, data, and training to promote voter engagement at the property level. This is particularly important in a COVID-19 environment in which traditional voter registration and mobilization activities aren’t possible and additional barriers to voting are expected. The goal is to build a coalition of housing providers representing over 1 million affordable housing renters. To date, the Housing Providers Council covers more than 400,000 units of affordable housing in 46 states.

Take a look at some of the excellent organizations already on board:

• Jonathan Rose Companies
• National Housing Trust
• Enterprise Community Partners
• Enterprise Community Developments
• The Community Builders
• NRP Group
• Mercy Housing
• Peabody Companies
• National Church Residences
• Avanath Capital
• McCormack Baron Salazar, Inc.
• Better Tomorrows
• WinnCompanies
• Columbia Residential
• Wishrock & Ray
• Wishcamper Development Partners
• TESCO Properties
• Preservation of Affordable Housing (POA)
• John Stewart Company
• The Silver Street Group
• NHP Foundation
• Landex Development, LLC
• L + M Development Partners
• Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation

Participants in the Housing Providers Council receive access to property-level voter registration lists for all properties, branded templates and other materials, and direct training and support from staff. In the end, the real benefit will be to unite our various local efforts to demonstrate a broad, growing movement. There is so much housing providers can learn from one another!

Please take a look at the Housing Providers Council website, and consider joining by completing this form. If you have any questions, please contact Brooke Schipporeit (bschipporeit@nlihc.org).

We hope you will consider participating because housing is built with ballots!

 

By Housing Providers Council