How to Use NLIHC’s New Congressional District Profiles

This past week, NLIHC updated our Congressional District Profiles. The profiles are an important tool for housing advocacy, updated throughout the year as new data becomes available. The most recent update incorporates newly available five-year Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) data. This update also reorganized the profiles, making it even easier to find the data relevant to your congressional district, and to compare housing needs across different income groups.

Advocates can use the profiles when meeting with Congressional staffers in a local district office or on Capitol Hill, to describe the extent to which additional affordable rental housing is needed locally.

When you meet with your Member of Congress or Member’s staff to discuss the need for affordable housing units, you can open the discussion by citing the number of severely burdened, extremely low income households living in your district.

For example, if you are a resident of Minnesota’s 5^th Congressional District, you can point out that over 38,000 extremely low income households live in the area. Among these households, 22,572 households (59%) face a severe housing cost burden. This means they pay over 50% of their income towards rent. Access to affordable housing would alleviate that burden for these families, allowing them to cover other bills and expenses, including healthcare, child care and transportation.

The Congressional District Profiles demonstrate that extremely low income households consistently face a severe housing cost burden, in large part because the poorest households in most districts have the fewest rental units affordable and available to them.

As the profile for the 5^th District indicates, that community has an immediate need for about 24,000 additional housing units to serve ELI households. Advocates should explain to Members and their staff that the National Housing Trust Fund is a solution to this housing shortage. The trust fund will directly address this demand for rental housing by providing additional resources towards expanding the supply of affordable housing in the district.

We hope housing advocates across the country find the profiles to be a useful advocacy tool. For more information on using the profiles or suggestions for when and how to weigh in with your Members of Congress, contact our outreach team at outreach@nlihc.org.

Meet our Interns: Marcus Mello

The National Low Income Housing Coalition is fortunate to have great interns every semester and summer. Over the next several weeks, each of our summer interns will share their experiences at the Coalition with you. 

Hello everyone, my name is Marcus Mello and I am currently one of two outreach interns at the National Low Income Housing Coalition. I began my internship at the end of May and I will be leaving at the beginning of August. So far, this internship has exposed me to a wide variety of issues facing the world of affordable housing and has also given me a glimpse of what it is like to being in the real world working a 9-5 job. As an outreach intern, I have gained considerable knowledge about the significant role that maintaining and building a membership base plays in the success of a policy advocacy organization.

I was originally interested in interning for NLIHC because of both my personal background and desire to learn more about an issue that I have studied in my economics courses. Having grown up in a Section 8 household, I really wanted to learn more about low income housing programs and how the environment is shaped by policy advocacy organizations. Though I plan to pursue architecture, policy is something that I have found intriguing since my freshman of year of college and I wanted an internship that would connect my interests in both the built environment and policy.

As an intern, it can be challenging juggling multiple tasks, such as making membership renewal calls, handling the direct assistance line, and organizing membership spreadsheets, at once. However, the staff at NLIHC have been nothing less than friendly and supportive. My fellow outreach intern, Becca, and I were even able to tag along with the research team to a hearing on Capitol Hill, which was awesome to see. My favorite project so far has been categorizing NLIHC’s list of member agencies. Becca and I are in the process of creating a membership dashboard for the NLIHC board of directors, which will contain charts and graphs pertaining to NLIHC’s membership demographics.

Outside the office, I have also been thoroughly enjoying myself. Coming from a suburb outside Boston, it also has been quite an experience trekking around the nation’s capital, which I had only visited in short trips before. Future intern alert: this is the city to be in. One of my favorite adventures was going on a bike tour of the monuments and memorials with a few of the other interns here on a previous Saturday. We also frequently eat lunch together in Lafayette Park, wave at Secret Service officers, and grab fro-yo (Yogen Früz is awesome) or Rōti (future interns: you have to try Rōti). As far as the internship goes, future interns should expect to be able to work independently and take notes. There are staff meetings every week, so it is important to keep track of what you learn for future reference. Lastly, bring short-sleeved and long-sleeved clothing – the weather here is unpredictable.

Anyways, gotta get back to work. Email me at outreachintern2@nlihc.org if you have any questions or comments or just want to say hi!