On the Home Front

In a recent blog post, tenant advocate Tiffiny Graven discusses what she calls “the profound significance of lived experience.” As Tiffiny explains, when it comes to developing effective housing policies – or any policies, for that matter – lived experience is “the compass, the lighthouse, and the map. It has the power to decipher the currents, illuminate the darkness, and guide the way. It’s not just a voice; it’s a bridge between intention and impactful action.”

Anybody familiar with housing advocacy will have encountered the phrase “lived experience.” Certainly, we at NLIHC use it a lot in our advocacy efforts and publications. But what exactly is “lived experience”?

Rather than being some kind of buzzword or bureaucratic slogan, lived experience expresses an idea at the core of policy advocacy and development: that it’s impossible to design effective housing policies without consulting those who are impacted by these policies. “When we say lived experience,” according to one government source, “we mean knowledge based on someone’s perspective, personal identities, and history, beyond their professional or education experience.” People with lived experience are “those directly affected by social, health, public health, or other issues and by the strategies that aim to address those issues. This gives them insights that can inform and improve systems, research, policies, practices, and programs.”

As hard as it is to believe, through much of the 20^th century, policymakers at all levels of government tended to design housing policy without input from people with lived experience, developing complicated programs meant to address homelessness, affordable housing, and other challenges while neglecting to seek any involvement from those who were homeless or having trouble securing stable housing. The problem isn’t simply that it wasn’t fair; it was also impractical. In most cases, federal officials had no awareness of what it was like to grow up in a housing project, or to be evicted, or to live on the street. Without such firsthand knowledge, policymakers were (and are) left to develop or improve programs based entirely on research, statistics, and data abstracted away from any human context.

Making policy without talking to those affected is like trying to treat an illness without speaking to the patient: you can get it broadly right, but you’re also likely to overlook critically important information, and you may even end up doing more harm than good. In certain domains of theoretical knowledge – the natural sciences or mathematics, for example – lived experience is probably less relevant. But when it comes to solving a real-world problem, few things beat firsthand familiarity.

NLIHC involves people with lived experience in all our advocacy efforts. One example is our Tenant Leader Collective, a cohort of tenant leaders from across the country who work towards housing justice and racial equity in their neighborhoods and greater communities. Last year, tenant leaders in the cohort met with senior White House leaders to inform federal action on tenant protections, which ultimately shaped the White House’s Blueprint for a Renters’ Bill of Rights.

One of the Biden administration’s commitments in the Blueprint – to consider ways for the federal government to strengthen tenant protections in properties with federally backed mortgages – created another opportunity for tenants to shape NLIHC’s policy agenda. NLIHC relied heavily on input from people with lived experience in our feedback to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) on its Request for Input to establish tenant protections for rental properties with federally backed mortgages. Tenants from across the country participated in weekly working group meetings during the comment period to share their experiences, insights, and policy ideas. NLIHC incorporated tenant feedback into a robust comment letter to FHFA, which details recommended policy reforms to improve access to housing, access to information, and tenant housing stability.

“Having ventured through the mazes of adversity, many possess an intrinsic comprehension of the challenges faced by those they seek to support,” writes Tiffiny. “This intuitive insight enables those with lived experience to offer guidance that transcends the textbook approach.” By involving tenant leaders at every step of the way, NLIHC strives to ensure that those low-income renters who are most impacted by federal housing programs have a seat at the policymaking table, where they can shape policy using the knowledge that only comes with experience.