Your Summer Advocacy Checklist

Your Members of Congress determine levels of funding for homelessness and housing, how homelessness programs work, and even whether there is a Continuum of Care program. Your lawmakers need to hear from you, because nobody knows better than you about what’s actually needed to reduce and prevent homelessness. But you don’t have to come to Washington, D.C., to meet with your lawmakers.

You can meet with your Representatives and Senators when they are back home during recess (periods when Congress is not in session), either in their nearest district or state offices or at your facilities. Members of Congress refer to recesses as “district/state work periods” because they spend so much time meeting with constituents. And there’s no better time to meet with your Members of Congress than the summer recess, which is always the longest of the session. This year, the summer recess begins July 28 in the House and August 4 in the Senate. Both houses of Congress are back in session on September 2, just after Labor Day.

How to Engage Your Members of Congress at Home

To help you make the most of the summer recess, the Alliance is providing you with four tips for engaging with your Members of Congress, including:

• scheduling, preparing for, and following up on meetings with your lawmakers, both in their offices and at your own facilities;
• expanding your coalition to include representatives from other, influential sectors;
• participating in town hall meetings; and
• organizing homelessness and housing roundtables.

And there’s no shortage of urgent topics to address and critical requests to make to your Members of Congress.

Elimination of the Continuum of Care (CoC) Program

The Continuum of Care Program is essential for funding homeless services across the country. In its markup of the FY26 Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations Bill, the House Appropriations Committee rejected the Administration’s proposals to:

(1) eliminate the CoC and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) programs in favor of the Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) program, and

(2) consolidate and block-grant the affordable housing programs. 

The Senate Appropriations Committee will soon mark up its version of the THUD bill. That committee may also reject the Administration’s proposals for HUD’s homelessness and housing programs, but there’s no way to know until their bill is released. 

Funding Levels for Homelessness and Housing Programs

The Alliance and more than 140 Representatives asked for $4.92 billion for Homeless Assistance Grants (HAG). This amount would provide more funding to communities to address the needs of their most vulnerable subpopulations as well as increase and improve shelter capacity. The House THUD bill provided an increase of $110 million, which is not even enough to keep up with the cost of living.

The Alliance also asked for at least $39 billion for Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA) and sufficient funds to maintain all Emergency Housing Vouchers for at least another year. However, the House THUD bill would give TBRA $35.3 billion, which is less than last year’s funding level. Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHVs) were made eligible for TBRA funding; however, this eligibility won’t keep the 59,000 households who rely on EHV from falling back into homelessness if TBRA doesn’t get receive funding.

More than 40 Senators asked that the Senate THUD bill include $4.92 billion for HAG, at least $39 billion for TBRA, and to maintain the EHVs for another year. The Senate Appropriations Committee will mark up the THUD bill, and hopefully include these funding asks.

Can the Alliance be helpful in your summer advocacy efforts? Please contact Tamina Chowdhury (tchowdhury@naeh.org), Samantha Wood (swood@naeh.org), and John Threlkeld (jthrelkeld@naeh.org) for more information.