While Members of Congress are currently home in their districts or states for the election season, now is the perfect time to directly engage them through participating in our Fall 2014 Local Member Engagement Campaign! There are various ways that you can directly engage your Members, including through hosting them for site visits, meeting with them in their in-district offices, and raising the issue of homelessness at a public campaign event. Members' schedules quickly fill up during the election season, so you should engage them as soon as possible!
The primary goal of this campaign is to collectively make sure that, when FY 2015 legislation is finalized, McKinney receives a $301 million increase to $2.406 billion in order to end chronic homelessness by the end of 2016. Read this blog to learn more about why this is so important.
In order to secure this increase, we need your help engaging Members to get them to agree to communicate the message that "providing $2.406 billion for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants program in FY 2015 is a high priority" to the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.
Here's What You Can Do:
Let us know as soon as possible which of the below actions you can commit to doing this fall, and use the below links to materials to help you start taking these actions--now is the time to get planning underway!
- Host a Member of Congress for a Site Visit! Site visits are one of the most effective ways to gain Members' support, and as such this is the most important advocacy action you can take this month.
- If you plan to host your Member for a site visit, you will need to start planning now! Use this work plan and read this toolkit chapter to assist you with your planning efforts!
- Let us know if you need any help planning or strategizing!
- Schedule meetings with your Members of Congress in their district offices!
- If your Member does not have time to attend a site visit, or if you are unable to host them, the next best thing you can do is schedule meetings with the Member in their district or state office. Use this checklist and read this toolkit chapter to help you to schedule and prepare for these meetings.
- Attend a public campaign event!
- Attend a town hall meeting, candidate forum, or other public event, and be vocal about our ask! Use this one pager for tips on how to engage your Members at public campaign events.
Remember, no matter how you choose to engage your Members, the most important part of your interactions will be to ask Members to communicate the message that "providing $2.406 billion for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants program in FY 2015 it a high priority" to the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.
It is particularly important to target Members who sit on the House or Senate Appropriations Committees, and those with other key leadership positions. You can email Julie or Jaime to help you determine who to engage, and don't forget to keep us posted on your efforts!
More Information:
On Friday, September 19, a continuing resolution (CR), or stopgap funding measure, was enacted to fund the government at FY 2014 levels through December 11. We are hopeful that FY 2015 legislation will be finalized soon after the election to fund the government past the end of this CR. Preliminary work to determine these funding levels is already underway. Therefore, it is extremely timely that the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees (Hal Rogers and Nita Lowey, and Barbara Mikulski and Richard Shelby, respectively), whose priorities will carry a lot of weight in determining the final FY 2015 funding levels, hear from their colleagues in Congress about the importance of a $301 million increase for McKinney as soon as possible. So please start planning how you will directly engage your Members today!
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