On the Home Front

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 to empowering low-income communities by increasing access to safe, affordable, quality housing. With a membership base primarily made up of nonprofit affordable housing providers, their residents, and housing justice organizations, SCANPH focuses on affordable housing policy development, advocacy, and industry education. SCANPH is also home to the Residents United Network Los Angeles (RUN-LA), a group of current affordable housing residents and formerly unhoused individuals who organize and advocate on the policies that directly impact their communities. 

As an Our Homes, Our Votes Pilot Community partner, SCANPH collaborated with RUN-LA to educate, register, and mobilize residents of affordable housing developments across Los Angeles County to cast their ballots and prioritize housing justice in the election. SCANPH’s nonpartisan voter engagement campaign reached more than 2,300 voters! While encouraging voter turnout, SCANPH and RUN-LA also educated residents about a local ballot initiative, Measure A, and two statewide measures, Proposition 5 and Proposition 33. SCANPH’s nonpartisan voter outreach helped secure the passage of Measure A, which increases funding for housing and homelessness service in LA County and will keep tens of thousands of Angelenos stably housed. 

Measure A will replace Los Angeles County’s quarter-cent sales tax for homelessness, which was approved by voters in 2017 and was set to expire in 2027, with a permanent half-cent sales tax. The new tax will generate an estimated $1 billion annually for affordable housing and homelessness services. 60% of the funds created by Measure A will go toward homeless services and mental health, 11% will go toward homeless prevention and renter supports, and 26% will go toward affordable housing development and preservation. To ease concerns over the disproportionate burden that sales taxes place on low-income households, Measure A’s language excludes essentials like food, rent, and medications from taxation. Had this measure not passed, the “Yes on A” Campaign projected that nearly 50,000 Angelenos could have become homeless – a potential 28% increase of homelessness in LA County. 

To mobilize residents in affordable housing to cast their ballots, SCANPH held more than 15 nonpartisan voter engagement phonebanking sessions, canvassing sessions, and in-person events. SCANPH held “Bingos, Burritos, and the Ballot” community events at nine affordable housing developments across the county, five of which were Permanent Supportive Housing properties. At each event, RUN-LA leaders grounded the conversations in their personal experiences with housing injustice, discussed why voting matters to them, and shared opportunities for residents to get involved in future advocacy. SCANPH staff asked open-ended questions about the need for affordable homes and then connected this need to the solutions that Measure A would offer. To help residents develop their own voting plans, SCANPH designed a custom bingo game. With squares such as “vote early,” “vote in person,” and “register to vote by mail,” the game offered conversation prompts to help the residents develop their own voting plans.  

Elevating the voices and leadership of the RUN members, staying nonpartisan, and focusing on ballot measures helped SCANPH and RUN build trust with residents. Many residents were disengaged from the presidential election, or skeptical of dedicating more funding to government agencies that had not met their needs in the past. Emphasizing policies and their connection to the residents’ own experiences of affordable housing helped limit tensions in a highly polarized election cycle. 

SCANPH and RUN-LA also hosted a nonpartisan Housing and Homelessness Candidate Forum for Los Angeles Assembly District 54. “Our strategy for organizing the [forum] centered on uplifting the voices and experiences of those who have experienced homelessness or lived in affordable housing, alongside subject matter experts,” said Mackenzie Rutherford, Organizing Associate at SCANPH and the Los Angeles Regional Organizing Coordinator for Residents United Network. “To foster candid and impactful dialogue, we sourced candidate questions from the Residents United Network, affordable housing developers, housing and legal advocates, and homeless service providers. Our work ensured that the forum was not just a conversation about housing policy, but a direct reflection of the realities, challenges, and solutions identified by those most engaged in and affected by the housing crisis.”  

To keep the forum resident-focused, RUN-LA leader Millie Brown opened with a personal testimony. “At [the forum], residents of affordable housing and community allies had the opportunity to speak to face-to-face with local candidates and express the importance of policies and how beneficial they can be to those seeking affordable housing and homeless services,” said Millie. “I feel it was impactful for the candidates to hear from a person like myself who has experienced and utilized these services and is now thriving as a result.”  

While the two-state level measures the campaign supported (Proposition 5 and Proposition 33) did not pass, Measure A’s success with 57.8% of the vote demonstrates there is strong public support for affordable housing and local solutions. SCANPH and RUN’s joint efforts not only secured a permanent, countywide funding source to address homelessness and housing insecurity for the lowest-income Angelenos, but also helped to grow and strengthen their base of affordable housing advocates. Join NLIHC in congratulating SCANPH and its allies on a major organizing victory!  

For more detailed information about Measure A and other housing and homelessness ballot measures, check out NLIHC’s “Housing and Homelessness on the Ballot” report at: www.ourhomes-ourvotes.org/ballot-measures  

About the NLIHC Organizing Awards 

NLIHC’s annual 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 homes that are accessible and affordable in communities of their choice. On the Home Front will highlight the victories of organizing award nominees throughout February and March. The winners will be announced the week prior to NLIHC’s 2025 Housing Policy Forum, where they will participate in a plenary discussion.