Funders Together prioritizes policies and actions that aim to create abundant housing to build the future our communities deserve, not only to respond to the crises we face today, but to confront what could transpire in the generations to come. Housing abundance is realized when there is an adequate supply of high quality, affordable housing that allows people to create stable, healthy, and thriving communities. We know that housing is a fundamental human right. A just housing society offers the assurance of safe, secure, affordable, and dignified living conditions where people have power and agency over how and where they live. Housing justice is a building block for racial justice and liberation. 

Over the last several years of work to better understand and pursue racial equity and housing justice, Funders Together and many of our partners in the national movement have started to grapple directly with our nation’s false sense of scarcity as we’ve come to more deeply understand the ways white supremacy has intentionally limited growth and opportunities, particularly for people who have been historically marginalized and harmed.  

By setting our sights on housing abundance, making necessary reforms to our current system, and seeding the ground for transformation, we are divesting from the frameworks and limitations of white supremacy and investing in the dignity, agency, and potential of our communities. By centering people with lived experience and by focusing on the most longstanding housing injustices in our country, we plan to create a new reality of housing security for future generations.  

Funders Together will prioritize housing abundance in our policy advocacy by pushing to reorient the nation's approach to housing through deep investment in our federal budget, divestment from punitive police and carceral systems, and a permanently affordable, abundant housing supply. 

FTEH’s Priorities for Housing Abundance 
 

REFORM - Federal Budget: Divest and Invest 

Funders Together will support our members, partners, and public officials in leveraging the federal appropriations and budgeting processes to invest in proven strategies and program reforms that promise to expand housing access across the country for all its citizens, residents, immigrants, as well as for newly arrived immigrants, refugees, and those seeking asylum. As communities begin to invest in social housing, and as Indigenous peoples reclaim their land, the federal government must follow suit and reform our housing policies and programs to come into aligned integrity with racial justice values, our communities’ needs, and our racial equity and justice aims.  

Lobbyists and policymakers alike have propagated a sense of scarcity and even attempted to hinder people from achieving housing stability based on their race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and their physical and mental strengths. Funders Together and its partners will focus on the presence of abundance across our nation and acknowledge that far too many resources are leveraged to criminalize, incarcerate, and oppress our communities. We will advocate for policymakers to make courageous decisions to divest from the carceral state and invest in the potential of our families and communities. 

TRANSFORMATION - Pursuing Government Reparations 

If the United States is to effectively transform our past and historic failings to then create a more just and liberated future, the government must accept accountability for its intentional and ongoing projects of slavery and subjugation. The United States government must redress the injustices and suffering it directly caused to generations of Black and African Americans, as well as the years of genocide and erasure of Indigenous peoples. These wrongs are directly responsible for the housing injustices we see today, for the deeply entrenched economic disparities that shape our communities, and for the limitations put on communities of color and other historically marginalized groups daily in the United States.  

While philanthropy has a role to play in racial repair and reparative philanthropy, it also has a crucial role in advocating for government-funded reparations for Black and Indigenous communities that will address wealth inequities that have kept these communities from true agency and choice over how and where they live. As outlined by our partners at Liberation Ventures and Bridgespan Group, philanthropy can start by abundantly resourcing “the ecosystem of organizations working to advance reparations as well as build a culture of repair that centers the healing, wellbeing, and safety of Black people.” 

Through policy advocacy, Funders Together will guide and advise partners and policymakers on how to move our federal government toward reparations and to set a precedent for justice. Our advocacy will be based on evidence-based practices, promising programs from across the world, and wisdom and aspirations from these communities themselves.