Love is Home
Housing Justice Resources
On June 14, we explored Housing First as both an evidence-based approach to ending homelessness and a moral imperative rooted in our Unitarian Universalist values. This page offers resources for those ready to move from reflection to action.
Housing First is not “housing only”; it pairs permanent, affordable housing with voluntary supportive services including case management, mental health care, substance use treatment, job counseling, and life skills training. The evidence is clear: it works better than any alternative, and it honors the inherent worth of every person.
Join the Affordable Housing Organizing Network
Stay informed about local housing justice efforts, upcoming meetings, and opportunities to take action in our community. Right now, this means joining our email list for updates.
Join the Email ListOr contact Dan Hoxworth at dhoxworth@gmail.com
📚 Suggested Reading
These books from educated professionals help refute anecdotal rhetoric with evidence and expertise.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Matthew Desmond
A landmark ethnographic study of eight families in Milwaukee, exposing how eviction is not just a symptom of poverty but a cause. Essential for understanding the housing crisis at the human level.
Housing First: Ending Homelessness, Transforming Systems, and Changing Lives
Deborah Padgett, Benjamin Henwood & Sam Tsemberis
Written by the creators and leading researchers of the Housing First model, this book presents the evidence base, implementation guidance, and real-world outcomes of this transformative approach.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Richard Rothstein
Documents the deliberate federal, state, and local policies that created residential segregation and entrenched housing inequality. Critical context for understanding who homelessness disproportionately affects and why.
Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns
Gregg Colburn & Clayton Page Aldern
A data-driven analysis showing that homelessness rates correlate with housing costs, not with rates of mental illness, substance use, or poverty alone. Destroys the myth that homelessness is primarily an individual failing.
No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, and Other Transgressions
Ryan Berg
A deep and intimate look at the lives of LGBTQ youth in foster care, vividly chronicling their struggles, fears and hardships, and revealing the force that allows them to carry on: the irrepressible power of hope.
Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Documents how 1960s federal programs meant to end redlining and boost Black homeownership were hijacked by banks and realtors into predatory lending schemes that devastated Black communities. Essential for understanding why “access” without equity isn’t liberation, and why market-based housing solutions often reproduce the harms they claim to solve.
Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope
Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn
Traces the collapse of working-class America through the lives of Kristof’s childhood friends in rural Oregon, a quarter of whom died young from drugs, alcohol, suicide, or reckless accidents. A humanizing portrait of how economic decline, frayed social safety nets, and policy failure push people into desperation, and a call to rebuild systems that catch people before they fall.
Abundance
Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson
Argues that America’s political paralysis stems not from scarcity but from a failure of imagination and institutional capacity to build. Klein makes the case that progressive politics must move beyond opposition and defense toward a vision of what government can actively create: housing, infrastructure, clean energy, and scientific progress. Essential for anyone advocating for affordable housing as part of a broader vision of societal abundance rather than managed decline.
🎧 Podcast
Hosted by Joe and Emma from Family Promise of Spokane
Monthly conversations that deliberately and compassionately untangle fact from fiction on homelessness, featuring expert guests and people with lived experience. Each episode explores a different intersectionality, from housing policy to mental health to systemic barriers; building empathy and knowledge for anyone seeking to move beyond rhetoric toward understanding.
🎯 Immediate Actions
Meet with Your City Councilmember
Ask: What are your plans to address affordable housing? What will you do about our RHNA shortfall? How will you house the 94 people left homeless by the University Terrace decision? Bring neighbors. Demand specifics.
Demand City Investment in Affordable Housing Staffing & Funds
The City has 10 staff working on economic development, yet none are dedicated to affordable housing for the jobs they create. The Department of Housing & Human Services needs $3-5 million annually to fill financing gaps. Any tax increase must include designated affordable housing funding. Show up to budget hearings. Write letters. Make noise.
Ask Mayor Lock Dawson to Prioritize Housing
Request that she direct her staff and bully pulpit toward affordable housing with equal or greater energy than her work attracting industry. The mayor sets the agenda. Ask her to signal that housing is central to whether this city thrives.