Empower Missouri is growing, and we’re excited to introduce you to several new team members over the coming weeks. Today let’s hear from Vee Sanchez, our newest Affordable Housing Policy Manager:
Hello everyone, I am Vee Sanchez! I have been living, working and raising my kids in Springfield, MO and the surrounding areas for the past 16 years. I come with a background in grassroots organizing, working to expand medicaid, protect workers rights and build tenant power. I am excited to join Empower Missouri as the Affordable Housing Policy Manager for the southwest region where I will be supporting the work of local tenant leaders and organizers in their efforts to build a network of tenant unions, in addition to expanding and providing support to our Affordable Housing Coalition.
An examination of the situation on the ground is needed to help us build an analysis of the moment we are in and the critical opportunities in front of us. The most powerful organizing occurs by following the leadership of those who are the most impacted by systemic violence today: the people closest to the problem are closest to the solution. Over this summer and fall, I am looking forward to meeting with tenant and unhoused leaders, community advocates, and direct service organizations in southwest Missouri to get to know them, to hear about their struggles, and to learn about their vision for a better Missouri. Organizing is about changing what is possible, and I believe in a Missouri where poor and working-class people can make decisions about where and how we live! Organizing a base of impacted tenants in southwest Missouri who are supported and well equipped to mount and lead relational, powerful campaigns, in addition to the creation of people-centered policies, is key in advancing the structural reforms we need to make safe, accessible, truly and permanently affordable housing a possibility for all Missourians.
And, as always and forever, I believe that we can do it!
Vee Sanchez
Affordable Housing Policy Manager
Spanish 
English
These are powerful and truthful words. I appreciate your sincerity and dedication to serving others. Don’t ever diminish the power of words. Words move hearts and hearts move limbs!
Aww, thank you Phillip! I appreciate it and am excited to get started 🙂