Housing

Vision

Across the U.S., families are navigating a housing market shaped less by neighborhood stability than by cycles of speculation and crisis. Federal recovery efforts have done little to curb the financial pressures driving up rents or expand affordable options to working families. As markets “recover,” households remain one setback away from displacement.

For renters and homeowners alike, the stakes are painfully real.  Along California’s Central Coast, tenants paid application fees for units that did not exist. In Dallas, low-income immigrants endured deteriorating apartments with disappointingly weak code enforcement. In Austin, shrinking affordability translated into more homelessness. During the pandemic, job losses collided with rising rents, pushing families to the brink.

In the absence of a national housing strategy, residents organized locally. Leaders from 14 counties in California, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, and Oklahoma drew down nearly $200 million in emergency rental assistance and extended eviction protections in the pandemic. In Mesa, Arizona, faith leaders built the political will to convert a hotel into transitional housing. In San Antonio, residents expanded home rehabilitation funding to prevent displacement. EPISO and Valley Interfaith defended long-standing development standards ensuring roads, water, and sewer infrastructure wherever new housing is built. Dallas Area Interfaith tenant leaders strengthened code enforcement by securing anonymous reporting for tenants.

Our constitutional and religious traditions affirm private property – but not as absolute. When speculation overrides human need, communities fracture and public systems absorb the cost.   Markets require moral frameworks oriented toward family stability and the common good.  Housing markets and policy require stewardship: ensuring that property supports human life, and not the reverse.

“They shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid...” 
– Micah 4:4

Impact

1. Advancing Protections for Mobile Home Residents in Colorado and Texas

   In 2026, mobile home residents in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley worked with Mountain Voices Project to avoid displacement, raise $11 million, and negotiate a contract to purchase their own land and build generational equity.

   Austin Interfaith (now Central Texas Interfaith) organized mobile home residents in several parks to win rent protections, safeguard undocumented families, secure infrastructure repairs, and establish the right to form residents’ associations—laying the groundwork for a stronger, citywide landlord–resident framework.

2. Preventing Displacement During the Pandemic

   West/Southwest IAF organizations secured $197.5 million for emergency rental assistance across 14 counties in 5 states, and worked to extend eviction moratoriums in California. Efforts were led by California IAF, Central Texas Interfaith (CTI), Common Ground, Coloradans for the Common Good (CCG), Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action (COPA), COPS/Metro, Dallas Area Interfaith (DAI) (more here), Marin Organizing Committee (MOC), Omaha Together One Community (OTOC), The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) (more here, here, and here), and Voices Organized in Civic Engagement (VOICE-OKC) and Allied Communities of Tulsa Inspiring our Neighbors (ACTION Tulsa).

3. Protecting Tenant Rights & Dignity in California and Texas

   COPA advanced statewide legislation prohibiting property managers from charging application fees for units that don’t exist, improving affordability and transparency.

   After winning major improvements to the rental housing code, DAI secured enforcement mechanisms to ensure safety and accessibility standards are upheld.

4. Expanding Housing Stability in Arizona, Texas, and California

   In the Phoenix area, Valley Interfaith Project persuaded the City of Mesa to convert a hotel into emergency transitional housing for vulnerable populations.

   In Marin County, MOC led the transformation of an abandoned nursing home into permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness.

   In Texas, COPS/Metro expanded San Antonio’s annual budget to include home rehabilitation assistance to prevent displacement, while CTI secured more than $200 million for homelessness prevention and support.

5. Preventing Foreclosures in California

   When a tsunami of foreclosures threatened families in the San Fernando Valley and South Central LA, One LA and California IAF leaders compelled the City of LA and the California Housing Agency to invest $12 million in a program that incentivized lenders to make loan modifications, including debt forgiveness, that saved 500 families from foreclosure.

6. Safeguarding Housing Standards in South Texas

   In 2023, Valley Interfaith and El Paso Interreligious Sponsoring Committee (EPISO) successfully opposed two bills that would have undermined housing development standards leaders fought for 30 years prior, safeguarding access to roads, water, and sewer infrastructure in new housing developments.