Homeless Advocates Set 2013 Policy Priorities

The executive directors and policy staff representing many of the nation’s leading homeless advocacy organizations met yesterday as the Homeless Advocates Group (HAG) to set policy priorities for 2013. Each member organization of HAG has set its own independent set of issues. The goal of this meeting was to reach consensus around a set of common policy priorities that collectively the group could both support and promote within and among each organization’s own allies.

The policy priorities chosen were:

     1)       National Housing Trust Fund

     2)       Criminalization of Homelessness

     3)       Affordable Care Act Rollout and Implementation

     4)       Preservation of Federal Funds Targeted to and for Those Experiencing Homelessness

The National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) lobbied hard for the Criminalization of Homelessness to be made a top priority and are very pleased with the progress made during this prioritization process. NCH was represented by Neil Donovan, executive director and John Harrison, NCH Speakers Bureau and the Washington DC based Homeless Peoples Advocacy Network (HPAN) group SHARC.