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NLIHC’s 2026 Annual Organizing Awards
By Carlton Taylor On March 12, 2026, NLIHC will honor our 2026 Organizing Awards recipients. Held on the second day of the NLIHC Housing Policy Forum 2026, NLIHC’s Organizing Awards recognize outstanding achievements in statewide, regional, citywide, neighborhood, or resident organizing that further NLIHC’s mission of ensuring that people with the lowest incomes have quality Continue reading
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Understanding the National Tenants Bill of Rights
What We Can Learn from Recent Wins by San Kwon Safe, stable, and affordable housing should be accessible to all. Yet, for many of the 45.6 million renter households in the U.S., this remains out of reach. For instance, in most parts of the country, landlords can raise rent without restriction and evict tenants with Continue reading
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The SAVE Act and Housing Justice: Why Voter Access Matters to Renters
by Hannah Botts and Tia Turner The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act claims to protect the integrity of U.S. elections. However, it proposes harmful restrictions that would disenfranchise many of the very communities already pushed to the margins of our democracy, particularly low-income renters, tribal communities, and young people in rural areas. Rather than Continue reading
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Affording Your Housing: A Renter’s Perspective on the 30% Rule
by Vandeka Rodgers When I entered the rental market as a young adult, I chose to value the necessities and wants I hoped to experience as a child. That includes washer and dryer, dish washer, my own room, and a two-story house. Within the first seven months of living on my own I realized that Continue reading
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NLIHC Recognizes Memphis Tenants Union as 2025 Local Organizing Award Honoree!
The Memphis Tenants Union (MTU) is honored with the 2025 NLIHC Local Organizing Award in recognition of its hard-fought, multi-year campaign that resulted in improvements in living conditions for residents of the local Memphis Towers and a new owner for the apartment complex. MTU is a multi-racial, multi-generational, working-class organization dedicated to building collective tenant Continue reading
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NLIHC Recognizes Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness as 2025 Statewide Organizing Award Honoree!
The Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness (MCAH) is honored with the 2025 NLIHC Statewide Organizing Award in recognition of its successful campaign to secure source-of-income (SOI) protections in Michigan in 2024. “This advocacy win was truly a years-long sustained effort by our coalition and partners,” reflected Lisa Chapman, MCAH’s director of public policy. MCAH, an NLIHC Continue reading
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NLIHC Recognizes the Housing Network of Rhode Island as an Organizing Awards Nominee!
The Housing Network of Rhode Island (HNRI), a nominee for the 2025 Organizing Awards and an NLIHC state partner, is recognized for its leadership to enact a statewide housing bond in the November 2024 elections. Conversations about a housing bond began after the state allocated nearly one-third of its American Rescue Plan Act state fiscal Continue reading
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NLIHC Recognizes Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance as an Organizing Awards Nominee!
The Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance (GNOHA), a 2025 organizing awards nominee, is recognized for its work to pass a charter amendment that establishes and funds a local Housing Trust Fund. For decades, the city of New Orleans had a property tax millage to support a modest neighborhood housing improvement fund. However, the mayor’s office Continue reading
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NLIHC Recognizes Hoboken Fair Housing Association as an Organizing Awards Nominee!
The Hoboken Fair Housing Association (HFHA), a nominee for the 2025 Organizing Awards, is recognized for its work to defeat a landlord-backed referendum that would have rolled back rent control in the city. Hoboken Fair Housing Association (HFHA), a long-established tenants’ rights organization and affiliate of New Jersey Tenants Organization (NJTO), joined forces with Hoboken Continue reading
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NLIHC Recognizes Maui Housing Hui as an Organizing Awards Nominee!
Maui Housing Hui, a nominee for the 2025 Organizing Awards and an NLIHC member, is recognized for leading advocacy efforts that prevented further displacement and instability for tenants following the devastating August 2023 wildfires in Maui. Their campaigns successfully modified the implementation of an Emergency Proclamation by the Governor to ensure greater housing stability for Continue reading
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NLIHC Recognizes SCANPH as an Organizing Awards Nominee!
The Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing (SCANPH), a 2025 organizing awards nominee and NLIHC state partner, is recognized for its innovative resident voter engagement initiatives in the 2024 election cycle, including its successful advocacy for a ballot initiative that will raise an estimated $1 billion annually for housing and homelessness services. SCANPH is dedicated Continue reading
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NLIHC Recognizes Open Table Nashville as an Organizing Awards Nominee!
Open Table Nashville (OTN), a 2025 Organizing Awards nominee, is recognized for its work to delay a homeless encampment clearing and subsequently create a Tent City Working Group convened by the Mayor of Nashville’s office. OTN is an interfaith homeless outreach and advocacy nonprofit that has helped residents of local encampments and low-income tenants organize Continue reading
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Fighting for Justice One Resident at a Time: Reflections from a Former Housing Choice Voucher Tenant
My name is Carla, and I would like to share my story about how I became a Housing Choice Voucher tenant, formerly known as Section 8, in Columbia, South Carolina. As a single mother, I faced uncertainty about how to provide a stable home for my family. My mother informed me that Columbia Housing was Continue reading
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NLIHC Celebrates Native American Heritage Month
NLIHC sits on the unceded homelands of the Nacotchtank, Anacostan, and Piscataway peoples and recognizes that the genocide of Native people is part of a long legacy of displacement and injustice that continues to impact housing stability today. We humbly work in partnership with Native-led organizations to expand our relationships, further our understanding, and uplift Continue reading
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Strengthening Renters’ Rights through Tenant Protections
Affordable, safe, stable, and accessible housing is a key part of the foundation of any just, equitable, and thriving community. Unfortunately, the lack of uniform renter protections at the federal level and the shortage of affordable and available rental housing for the lowest-income renters leave many tenants in precarious positions when it comes to housing Continue reading
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The Tenant Toolkit: How Accessible Resources Can Empower Tenants for Self-Advocacy
Abbie Leonard, Legal Services of Eastern Missouri Confusion and misinformation about tenants’ rights and housing law consistently challenge our work in the Housing Law unit at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (LSEM) in St. Louis. Coupled with well-resourced landlords and skewed laws fueling a stark power imbalance between tenants and landlords, this challenging landscape negatively Continue reading
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We Have a Right to Recovery!
Dana Jones is a native Houstonian and life-long activist. In 1992, she moved into a home in northwest Houston that provided a safe haven for her and her family. However, over the years, the house faced disaster after disaster, and the systems meant to help homeowners recover from such devastation failed her due to bureaucratic Continue reading
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The National Tenants Bill of Rights: A Roadmap for Local, State, and Federal Protections
When people struggle to pay rent, every aspect of their lives is harder. While much of the housing crisis debate focuses on increasing housing supply, building more units alone will not fix our broken housing system. Robust tenant protections are needed to address the power imbalance between landlords and tenants that fuels racial inequity and Continue reading
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Homeowners, Renters, and Households of All Incomes Back Housing Reforms
Households throughout the country, particularly those with the lowest incomes, are struggling with the high cost of housing because of decades of underbuilding, high construction costs, and the resulting shortage of homes for sale and for rent, all combined with inadequately funded housing assistance. A national survey released in late 2023 shows strong support for state and municipal policies to allow… Continue reading
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From Activism to Elected Office: Supervisor Dean Preston and the Movement for Tenants’ Rights
This article is adapted from an interview with Dean Preston, founder of Tenants Together and member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Dean Preston began his career in the early 2000s as a tenant attorney in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. Preston frequently defended tenants who were at risk of eviction because of state Continue reading
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The Rent-Wage Gap: Perspectives on Housing Affordability
In our current economic landscape, a pressing ethical concern emerges from the widening chasm between escalating rental expenses and stagnant wages. This discrepancy, often disregarded, holds ethical implications for individuals, families, and communities. This essay seeks to illuminate this issue from various standpoints, encompassing perspectives from tenants, landlords, economists, and policymakers. Continue reading
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Building Power through Organizing: An Interview with Maria Hernandez and Marsh Santoro
Maria Hernandez lives in San Diego, California, where she has been part of the statewide Residents United Network (RUN) for 10 years. She now serves as the organization’s steering committee member representing San Diego. Marsh Santoro lives in Fairview, Oregon, and leads the Resident Advisory Committee for her building complex. Marsh is also a member Continue reading
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5 Ways We Involve Tenants in Our Work
How are tenants involved in NLIHC’s fight for housing justice? A better question is: how are tenants not involved? In our last post, tenant advocate Miracle Fletcher wrote about her experience attending NLIHC’s second annual Collective Retreat at the Resora in Albany, Georgia, last October. Made up of tenant leaders from around the country, the Continue reading
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Reflections on Four Days at the Resora
By Miracle Fletcher NLIHC convened its second annual Collective Retreat on October 6-9 in Albany, Georgia. This year, NLIHC staff and members of the Collective – a group or tenant leaders from across the nation – returned to the sacred grounds of the Resora on Cypress Pond, a property of New Communities, which was founded Continue reading
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How to Form a Tenant Group
In our last On the Home Front blog post, we interviewed tenant-advocate Sandra Barksdale about her experience advocating for safe and healthy living conditions for tenants at her apartment complex in Virginia. Among other things, Sandra has focused on establishing tenant groups to propel advocacy efforts. “The most important thing was having resident voices heard,” Continue reading
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A Tenant Advocate’s Journey: An Interview with Sandra Barksdale
Sandra Barksdale is a long-time resident of Reston, Virginia. She has been advocating for safe and healthy living conditions for tenants at the Bowman Towne Court apartment complex in Reston since 2019. She has advocated for repairs and maintenance throughout the complex amidst calls by local politicians, developers, and community groups to tear down Bowman Continue reading
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Updated Database, New Report Hold Key Information for State and Local Affordable Housing Programs
With support from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), NLIHC has released an update to the Rental Housing Programs Database (RHPD) and an accompanying report to give policymakers, researchers, and housing advocates greater insight into the growing number of state and local programs that promote affordable housing. The new resources are available here. Continue reading
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“Like Trying to Find a Needle in a Haystack”: Advocating for Fair and Accessible Housing with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
R.S. Hurley is an advocate in California who is disabled with the environmental illness (EI) multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). As a Section 8 voucher holder, she has spent decades working to secure her own reasonable accommodations for accessible/medically safe housing and to support hundreds of other renters living with EI. Ms. Hurley is the author Continue reading
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Four Easy Ways to Communicate with Your Elected Officials
In a recent blog post, we heard from CJ O’Hara, a Chicago-based advocate with lived experience, about resources and other ideas for those getting started in affordable housing advocacy. In particular, CJ mentions the importance of ensuring your voice is heard by communicating directly with members of Congress. But doing so can seem a little Continue reading
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Strengthening Civil Rights and Empowering Resident Leaders: Illinois Coalition for Fair Housing Receives Statewide Organizing Award
The Illinois Coalition for Fair Housing is a group of directly impacted community members and advocates committed to making housing access in Illinois equitable and just. Coalition members include tenant leaders, housing and homelessness organizations, disability rights advocates, civil rights and antipoverty groups, and faith communities. For nearly two decades, advocates in Illinois have pushed Continue reading
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Bipartisan Housing Bills in the 118th Congress
The 118th Congress kicked off on January 3, 2023, with Republicans in charge of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democrats in control of the Senate. A divided Congress may pose a challenge for passing effective solutions to homelessness, but advocates should not lose hope. NLIHC will continue to advocate for the bold policy goals Continue reading
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“Information is key”: Advice for Advocates from CJ O’Hara
CJ O’Hara is a homeless and housing advocate based in Chicago. In 2014, CJ became homeless. While trying to find a place to stay, he learned about the programs designed to help people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, as well as the barriers that exist in some of these programs. In 2015, he began his Continue reading
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NLIHC’s Tenant Leader Cohort Visits the White House
By David Foster, NLIHC, based on interviews with tenants and tenant leaders Members of NLIHC’s Tenant Leader Cohort – alongside other people with lived expertise, legal aid providers, advocates, and researchers – attended a meeting focused on tenant protections at the White House on November 14, 2022. The Cohort and NLIHC President and CEO Diane Continue reading
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Tenant Organizing and Advocacy Efforts
In our last blog post, tenant organizer Linda Soderstrom explained how she and 36 other tenants at her Minnesota housing complex fought back against an attempt by a new owner to evict tenants who were recipients of Section 8 vouchers. Soderstrom writes that her tenant group “stood up for the 2,500 of us and alleged Continue reading
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Crossroads at Penn: We Can Do Better Than This
By Linda Soderstrom, NLIHC Tenant Leaders Cohort Memberllsod.lindalee@gmail.com507.932.9908 In 2015, on a beautiful fall day, written notices were given under the kitchen doors of 698 units in a single afternoon. The notices said that no more county rehab programming or Section 8 housing choice vouchers would be accepted at Crossroads at Penn, located in a Continue reading
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Expanding Access to Housing for People with Disabilities through Universal Design
In our last post, we heard from Claudia Swaney, a disability and housing rights activist from Michigan. As Claudia explains, almost half of all extremely low-income renter households in Michigan are headed by seniors or people with disabilities, but the state lacks the units necessary to provide affordable housing for them. What’s more, the units Continue reading
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“They are building luxury apartments and condos, not low-income housing.”
Claudia Swaney is a disability rights and housing justice advocate in Michigan. She has personally faced the impact of rising rents. As Claudia explains, “I have moved a lot due to high rents, and renovations have increased my rent from $185 to $205 this year alone. My voucher amount is still the same.” Claudia has Continue reading
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Section 8 Housing
In our last blog post, Yvonne Farrell, a very low-income tenant and senior living in Washington D.C., wrote about her experiences facing housing instability. Yvonne explained that she gets “more run-around and rejection than rent assistance” but she believes that “HUD, with the current focus on eviction prevention, is going to come up with a Continue reading
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May is Affordable Housing Month!
The month of May is National Affordable Housing Month! This year, NLIHC is celebrating the occasion by highlighting the history of affordable housing in the United States. The shelter provided by housing is one of humanity’s most basic needs for survival, yet due to social, economic, and political challenges, many people struggle to obtain and Continue reading
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Fair Housing and Its History
The “Fair Housing Act of 1968” (FHA) was signed into law on April 11, 1968, by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Meant to complement the “Civil Rights Act of 1964,” the FHA prohibits discrimination in the sale, renting, or financing of property and mortgages based on race, religion, national origin, or sex. The FHA was the Continue reading
On the Home Front 