Thank you to everyone who joined Monday's (8/22) Our Homes, Our Votes webinar, “Voting while Experiencing Homelessness”!

People experiencing homelessness, service providers, and election officials often face uncertainty about the process of voter registration and obtaining voter ID for those without a permanent address. This webinar discussed how people experiencing homelessness can exercise their voting rights and overcome the obstacles to making their voices heard in the political arena.

Courtney Cooperman, housing advocacy organizer at NLIHC, gave an overview of the history of voting rights for unhoused citizens, the range of state-level rules that govern voter registration and access to mail-in balloting for people experiencing homelessness, and helpful resources from partner organizations.  Sidney Betancourt, housing advocacy organizer at NLIHC, previewed the new edition of Tenant Talk: Housing is Built with Ballots. Kat Calvin, founder of Project ID and Spread the Vote, discussed how IDs lay an essential foundation for both housing security and civic participation, as well as the consequences of losing an ID as a result of homelessness. Kat also surveyed pioneering efforts to expand access to IDs. Sue Corby, coordinator at Welcoming Manchester, and Jessica Margeson, tenant organizer at Granite State Organizing Project, presented on their grassroots efforts to register and mobilize historically marginalized voters, including new citizens and people experiencing homelessness in encampments.