NLIHC: Help support Affordable Housing for everyone!

Happy New Year! I hope 2022 is starting out well for you, or if not that you’re hanging in there for now.

To start off the year at eclecticmisc.org, here are the results for December’s poll to decide which organization will get a $50 donation!

Every month, site visitors participate in a poll to help me pick which progressive-friendly organization to donate to.

Here are some of the past winners that you’ve chosen, ranging from ACLU to RIP Medical Debt and many in-between.

Of the six choices in December, the top vote getter was:

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC)! https://nlihc.org/donate

The NLIHC, which is has a 4-star (top) rating on Charity Navigator, fights for the right of everyone to have quality, affordable housing, no matter what their income is. They work on three different fronts to help make this a reality:

*(All images and data for this post from* *https://nlihc.org*)

NLIHC works with partners in each state to gather data on the communities where the housing crisis is the worst, and to take concrete steps to address the housing needs of low-income individuals, based on the situation in that state or community.

Here’s an example of what the housing situation is like in California. Shockingly, 21% of renters in California are “extremely low income” and there’s a shortage of almost 1 million rental units. NLIHC have several partners that they work with, including the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California and California Coalition for Rural Housing, who provide rental or housing assistance to those who need it, as well as important work to inform and persuade lawmakers and the public about the need for increased funding and systemic changes to address the housing crisis.

NLIHC has been involved in a number of campaigns that have helped people who needed it the most — they spearheaded efforts to establish the National Housing Trust Fund in 2008. 90% of this federal funding goes towards “production, preservation, rehabilitation, or operation of affordable rental housing” and up to 10% of it goes to aid to “first-time homebuyers [for] down payment, closing cost, and interest rate buy-down assistance”, among other things.

Another recent way they’ve helped to educate elected officials and the public about the housing crisis is a joint report related by NLIHC and the University of Pennsylvania’s Housing Initiative showing that direct rental aid to tenants from the Treasury’s Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program was more effective than giving this money to landlords, who in many cases didn’t even apply for it.

This may seem pretty obvious, but tell that to state lawmakers across the country who distributed their funding to landlords instead of tenants, and the federal government that allowed them to do this. There are now data to show what a bad idea that was.

As someone whose family was homeless briefly when I was growing up, and who lived in substandard housing (including roach-infested apartments) at several points during my childhood, this is a cause that’s important to me. One of the readers of eclecticmisc.org who voted in the donation poll shared a similar personal reason for voting for NLIHC

“National Low Income Housing because I’ve had first hand experience with losing a home, it is scary to not have support. ”

This is a problem affecting millions of people in the richest country in the world. I’m happy to donate $50 to NLIHC to help fight for the changes we need so that low-income families and individuals have a right to housing and can get the personal and structural assistance they need to make that a reality.

Thank you to everyone who voted, and please consider donating to them too if you can. Plus, if you shop on Amazon, you can also indirectly donate to them with no extra cost to you — through the Amazon Smile program, which donates a (small) portion of each of your Amazon purchases to the charity of your choice. (Link to do so for NLIHC here). If you’re shopping on Amazon anyway, this will at least make sure a portion of your purchase goes towards an important cause.

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The January $50 donation poll will be opening up tomorrow. Receipts and votes for December’s $50 donation poll below!

Donation receipt —