By Jill Winsor
It’s National Housing Week of Action and we are raising our voices to make sure that everyone has a safe place to call home!
Today we are focusing on our efforts on building relationships with our state legislators. The Oregon State Legislature recently took action to expand housing opportunity by increasing the document recording fee. This increase means that we will have significantly more money available to prevent and end homelessness; build and preserve more affordable rental housing; and help people access affordable homeownership. Read more here.
Today, call your state legislator and thank them for the work they did during the 2018 legislative session and encourage them to continue to work hard to address Oregon’s housing needs.
Here is what you need to do:
1) Find your Legislator by visiting here: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/FindYourLegislator/leg-districts.html. Enter your address, and a map will pop up with a star, and show you both your Representative and Senator, and their email addresses and phone numbers.
2) Will you email or call? Pick one, and off we go!
3) First, introduce yourself. Let them know you’re a constituent!
4) Tell your Legislator why housing opportunity is important to you. Consider using one of our values based messages (here: https://www.oregonhousingalliance.org/talking-about-home/)
5) Share why it’s important to you that everyone in your community have a safe place to call home. Do you have personal experience with housing instability, or has someone close to you experienced housing instability? Have you volunteered at a shelter or at your church to help people experiencing homelessness?
6) Ask them to support the housing issues you care most about:
- Preventing and ending homelessness
- Protecting people who rent their homes
- Building more affordable homes
7) Thank your Legislator for their time.
Easy! You’re done, and you’ve made an important difference for people experiencing housing instability in our state.