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Together, We Can Send Congress a Powerful Message

Written by Steve Berg November 8, 2017

Last week, the Alliance outlined our ambitious plan for the fall to grab the attention of Congress and send them a powerful message: we can end homelessness, but they need to make funding it a priority. We’ve already had a great response from you all, with hundreds of messages sent to Congress in the first days of this campaign.

Now it’s time to turn up the volume.

On Tuesday, November 14, the Alliance is holding a National Call-In Day. Together with advocates from across the country, our goal is simple: flood Congressional Offices with calls, and get out the message to make ending homelessness a priority as the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 budget is decided.

What are we asking Congress for?

The Alliance’s priority this fall is to secure increases to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants, which fund the Continuum of Care (CoC) and Emergency Solutions Grants. These programs represent the Federal Government’s primary crisis response to homelessness.

So far, the bills in the House and Senate aren’t funded sufficiently to keep up with increasing demand. This means more people in more communities will experience homelessness.

We’re asking Congress to provide a $217 million increase for McKinney-Vento Programs. This will help communities meet rising demand, and house 40,000 more people nationwide.

Why now?

Congress must pass a new budget by December 8, or face a potential shutdown. Congressional offices are making their decisions now about which programs will receive priority in any final budget agreement. We need to make it clear, today, that homeless assistance is a priority for communities across the country, and that federal funding is essential to the efforts of these highly-effective programs.

What can you do?

There is power in numbers, so we need as many people as possible to call on November 14. The Alliance has created an easy-to-use tool for you to reach your Members of Congress. We’ve also put together a simple guide about how to organize your community. Here is what we need from you, starting today:

  1. Download our Social Media Guide to get examples of how to reach out to your networks.
  2. Email your networks and ask them to put a reminder on their calendar to call their Members of Congress on November 14.
  3. Share the alert on Facebook.
  4. Tweet the alert on Twitter.
  5. Call your Members of Congress on November 14, here!