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📤Our May Newsletter is out! 📰 Read below to check out the latest updates locally and statewide. If you have an article you'd like us to cover for next month, let us know in the comments!

The promise of cash vouchers for housing beckons like a mirage, offering hope but ultimately leaving vulnerable individuals in crisis. Through my experiences, I've seen the devastating impact of underfunded voucher programs, which leave families stranded on waitlists or struggling to access limited resources. Even when vouchers are obtained, landlords often hesitate due to cumbersome bureaucracy, leaving tenants to face unmanageable rent burdens and the constant threat of displacement. We need to dispel the notion that cash vouchers are a panacea for housing affordability and homelessness. Instead, we need to acknowledge the complex issues perpetuating inequality and housing insecurity, including poverty, inadequate affordable housing supply, and systemic inequalities. It's time to invest in multifaceted solutions that address these challenges directly. This requires a range of strategies, including affordable housing development and preservation, rent control and tenant protection policies, social services and support programs for low-income families, and community land trusts and cooperative housing models. We must also confront discrimination in housing and lending practices, increase funding for housing programs and social services, and implement inclusive zoning and community development initiatives. Additionally, legal representation for tenants facing eviction, community engagement and participation in housing decisions, and collaboration between government, non-profits, and private sector entities are essential. If we work together, we can create a future where affordable housing, social justice, and community well-being are fundamental human rights. Let's move beyond the limitations of this cash voucher idea. 😒

📣 Let your voice be heard! To all my friends working at a public entity (cities, counties, states, public utilities, schools, etc.) or participating in municipal markets please fill out this survey! Takes 5 minutes! ⏰ #SchoolDistrict #PublicEntity #Municipal #Government

Today is the Big Day of Giving – where Sacramento steps up to support their favorite nonprofits. And this year, we need your help. Financial support for journalism organizations has declined steeply in the Post-Pandemic era. Inflation and uncertainty about the economy have led to lower revenues for both for-profit and nonprofit publishers. Many publications have had to cut staff and eliminate projects in the past year. So far, Capitol Weekly has been lucky - like most journalism orgs, our revenue dropped last year, but we have kept our staffing levels, and continued to produce programs like Capitol Weekly, The Roundup, California Conferences, The Capitol Weekly Podcast, and our Public Policy Journalism Internship. We even added new features like The Micheli Minute and Rising Stars. Open California, the 501c3 nonprofit publisher of Capitol Weekly is taking part in this year’s Big Day of Giving - we hope you will consider supporting us today. None of our programs would be possible without the support of people like you who believe in the value of public policy journalism. And, all donations (up to $2500) we receive during this year's Big Day of Giving campaign will be matched by a generous grant from one of our longterm supporters, the Tribal Alliance of Sovereign Nations. We hope you will help us make the most of this incredible offer! At Capitol Weekly, our mission is to create original, in-depth coverage of current policy and political issues, and engage our audience through both online and offline mediums. Your donation is crucial to helping us continue. We're hoping to make this our best Big Day of Giving ever! - your donation of any size will help us get there. Please help us make our goal! https://lnkd.in/gybWcmhB

An article published by Vox discusses the potential for the faith-based development movement to help address the nation’s affordable housing and homelessness crises. The article highlights the work of YIGBY, or Yes in God’s Backyard, a San Diego-based organization that works with faith-based groups to develop affordable housing on their unused or underutilized land. The movement has gained traction across the country as more faith-based leaders have begun to see the benefits of this type of development for their communities and their bottom line, and more policymakers realize its capacity to help tackle the housing crisis. The article points to several pieces of state, local, and federal legislation that have been passed or introduced to expand and ease faith-based development, including California’s Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, which streamlines the approval for new projects on church land, and Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) Yes In God’s Back Yard Act, which was recently introduced in Congress. For related content, visit the webpage for Enterprise’s Faith-Based Development Initiative (FBDI), which provides houses of worship with the knowledge and tools needed to develop their underutilized land into affordable housing. https://lnkd.in/gPVRmR2N

These conversations have been percolating for some time—bringing guaranteed income to federal housing assistance programs to understand the interplay of the two or where cash may help more than vouchers. This HUD study could be transformative for how the fundamental need for housing is met through federal assistance: https://lnkd.in/gS_H74KC It's a question many in the guaranteed income policy & research space have been thinking about in studies like Denver Basic Income Project on cash for the unhoused or housing insecure (which just released a 1 yr report), the New Leaf Project in Vancouver, and, among others, a study I took part in with the Urban Institute in Austin, which points to housing safety net gaps that the Fund for Guaranteed Income is hoping to address in its housing pledge. (https://lnkd.in/gTPsT9fe) Ultimately, an all-of-system approach is needed to secure social mobility for people living in poverty, who are victims of an unequal economy which does not work for everyone. But we know housing is fundamental, and we will need to ensure basic needs—and government programs helping to meet them—are not exploited by the market to reproduce poverty & inequality.

The summer issue of NYMTC Notes is here! Keep up with our latest information and subscribe here so you don’t miss updates on our Regional Transportation Plan, Community Workshops, Brown Bag series, and more! 📩 https://bit.ly/4c9pZho #Newsletter

In the grand tapestry of politics, the vibrant threads of municipal governance often go unnoticed, yet they are the ones that weave together the fabric of our daily lives. Today, we celebrate the dedicated individuals in municipal politics – the council members, mayors, and local leaders who are the heartbeat of our communities. They are the unsung architects of our local parks, the guardians of our neighborhood streets, and the planners of the communities where our lives unfold. Municipal politicians may not command the national spotlight like their federal and provincial counterparts, but their impact is felt in the most immediate and personal ways. From the safety of our roads to the health of our local environment, they make decisions that touch upon the minutiae of our day-to-day existence. Let’s also uplift the spirited citizens who serve on committees and task forces. These are the champions of community, volunteering their time and lending their voices to ensure our towns and cities flourish. They prove that when it comes to shaping a community, every action, every initiative, and every single decision can make a profound difference. While federal and provincial politics lay the foundations and set the direction of our nation, municipal politics fills in the rich details that make the picture complete. This is a toast to the local leaders and the engaged citizens alike – your contributions are the cornerstone of our community's identity, and your efforts are truly what make our cities and towns vibrant places to live, work, and play. Here's to the power of local governance and the remarkable impact of municipal politics!

On a scale of 1-10 I'd rank my public policy knowledge somewhere between 5 to 6.5. Today I attended the Common Sense Institute Colorado's Eggs & The Economy event and was reminded of how important it is to be an informed citizen. On the day of our first public viewing of Rebecoming Me, CSI released their report on the Economic and Social Costs of Colorado's Foster Youth (shoutout to KUSA-TV, 9NEWS Leader of the Year - John Farnam). The work that our team put into Rebecoming Me and the research done by CSI (without knowledge of each others work) shows the need to address systemic issues from a multi-faceted lense. Data, coupled with real human experience allows us to build empathy and ignites a desire to create meaningful change. Today I was reminded why the work that our team is focused on doing is so important. Converging the human experience alongside the data is one piece of a complex, solutions orientated approach to meaningful change. Our goal is to create more conversations and spaces where we come together to address what really matters in our communities, because in the end we are truly Better Together. Watch Rebecoming Me - https://lnkd.in/g2VWBkqC Read CSI's Report - https://lnkd.in/grMWNPKJ Rachel Farha Peter LiFari JAE ALLYCE Shari Shink Cinamon Watson