NLIHC’s Opportunity Starts at Home (OSAH) campaign has awarded capacity-building grants to seven state-based organizations that will work to advance the national campaign’s goals. Each grantee will use its funding to expand its state’s housing coalition to include stakeholders from non-housing sectors, including the health, education, racial equity, labor, food security, climate, faith, and anti-poverty sectors. In so doing, the grantees will join a growing housing movement focused on mobilizing stakeholders from many sectors to generate widespread support for federal policies that correct long-standing racial inequities and economic injustices by ensuring quality housing for people with low incomes.
The new grantees were selected through a competitive proposal process and will be formally recognized as state affiliates of the national campaign. Each grantee demonstrated in its application a strong commitment to advancing federal affordable housing solutions for people with the lowest incomes, amplifying racial equity, and expanding partnerships to different sectors. By joining the OSAH campaign, the new grantees will gain access to resources, multi-sector networks, and technical assistance.
The grantees are as follows:
- African American Clergy Collective of Tennessee
- Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio
- Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness
- North Carolina Housing Coalition
- Prosperity Indiana
- South Carolina Association of Community Action Partnerships
- Virginia Housing Alliance
“Today, the campaign celebrates nearly six years of working towards our shared vision of having a multi-sector movement in every state,” said Chantelle Wilkinson, national director of the Opportunity Starts at Home campaign. “As state partners continue to join our efforts, new coalitions of doctors, teachers, environmentalists, social workers, faith leaders, housing advocates, and many others are working together to urge policymakers to address a basic need – housing. This work is critical. It is powerful for Congress to hear from national advocates, but it’s especially powerful for them to hear from their own constituents in the states they represent.”
The OSAH campaign will continue to pursue its efforts to involve partners in all 50 states. To date, the campaign supports partners in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Learn more about OSAH’s state partners here.