Your State and Local Officials Will Decide How New Federal Funds Are Spent

Last week, Congress passed a huge spending bill that funds an array of sectors and services.

We are pleased that our federal lawmakers provided this needed fiscal relief, but we need to ensure that our state and local governments prioritize people experiencing homelessness and those who serve them.

Contact your governor today! Click here to find your governor’s phone number or email address.

find contact info

Take action

We need your help to urge state and local governments to focus on allocating this new funding to protect people experiencing homelessness and homeless system response staff, and to limit inflow into health care and hospital systems.

This includes ensuring people experience homelessness — and the people helping them — have immediate access to housing, health and safety training, personal protective equipment, facilities for hand-washing, medical treatment, testing options, and ultimately safe places to quarantine.

Thank you for taking action. See below for a sample phone script and email you can use.

Sample phone script

You can use this sample script when calling your governor. If you don’t get through, feel free to leave a message.

Hi, my name is ___________ and I live in [city, state.]
I am calling Governor __________ to make sure that they prioritize people experiencing homelessness and those that serve them when making decisions about how to allocate the new funds from the federal stimulus.
People experiencing homelessness are vulnerable to contracting and spreading the coronavirus. Please use these new funds to ensure sufficient access to spaces for quarantine and isolation, facilities for hand-washing, medical treatment, testing options, and ultimately housing.
As frontline staff, homeless response providers also need health and safety training, personal protective equipment, and safe ways to work with this vulnerable population.
Can I count on the governor to prioritize the needs of those in our state experiencing homelessness and those helping them?
Thank you for your time.

Sample email template

Copy and paste this into an email or online form. Feel free to edit to include a personal story.

Dear Governor _______,

My name is _______ and I live in [city, state.]

When making decisions about how to allocate the new funds from the federal stimulus, I am urging you to prioritize people experiencing homelessness and those that serve them.

Using this new funding to protect people experiencing homelessness and our homeless response staff will help limit the inflow into health care and hospital systems — which is already stretched thin.

People experiencing homelessness are particularly vulnerable to contracting and spreading the coronavirus. Please use these new funds to provide immediate access to housing, facilities for hand-washing, medical treatment, testing options, and ultimately safe places to quarantine.

As frontline staff, homeless response providers also need health and safety training, personal protective equipment, and safe ways to work with this vulnerable population.

Can I count on the governor to prioritize the needs of those in our state experiencing homelessness and those helping them?

Thank you.

[Name]
[Address]
[City, State zip]