For the past several months, a growing coalition of tenant leaders, housing advocates, legal experts, and community leaders in Springfield has been working toward a game-changing goal: securing a Right to Counsel (RTC) for tenants facing eviction. The problem is clear—eviction courts are fundamentally unbalanced. Across the country, landlords almost always have legal representation, while...Read More

Civic Engagement 101 will teach advocates, impacted people, and not for profit staff how to share their experience with elected officials. Geared towards the Missouri state legislature, these skills can help you advocate for systems change at many levels. Decision makers must hear from the experts, including you. Policy advocacy doesn’t need to feel scary...Read More

Civic Engagement 101 will teach advocates, impacted people, and not for profit staff how to share their experience with elected officials. Geared towards the Missouri state legislature, these skills can help you advocate for systems change at many levels. Decision makers must hear from the experts, including you. Policy advocacy doesn’t need to feel scary...Read More

Civic Engagement 101 will teach advocates, impacted people, and not for profit staff how to share their experience with elected officials. Geared towards the Missouri state legislature, these skills can help you advocate for systems change at many levels. Decision makers must hear from the experts, including you. Policy advocacy doesn’t need to feel scary...Read More

In May the Missouri General Assembly will adjourn, after what we hope will be a productive session. Mark your calendar now to join us as we recap everything that happened in anti-poverty legislation over the last few months. We’ll discuss the highs and lows of what got done, where we made progress but didn’t quite...Read More

This week, Governor Kehoe signed SB 4, an omnibus utility bill that changes financing for utility companies. The bill adds more ways for utility companies to shift costs to consumers and increase utility bills. Empower Missouri denounces this change for these reasons: Consumers Council of Missouri estimates that SB 4 will raise utility bills by...Read More

Members of Empower Missouri’s Affordable Housing, Community Justice, and Food Security coalitions are invited to meet in person to build community, build strategy, and celebrate our accomplishments. Our staff will debrief the 2025 legislative session and coalitions will begin planning strategy for future advocacy efforts. This is a FREE, in-person event, and lunch and refreshments...Read More

Last month, Empower Missouri launched a new educational series on the American housing crisis.  In our March piece, we focused on sharing statistics on the decrease of new home builds across the country and the resulting impact on both renters and aspiring homeowners. Today, we’re going to look at some of the underlying factors that...Read More

The Housing Crisis: A Community Issue Affordable housing is one of those phrases that is often seen as a problem for families earning low incomes; however, all Missourians have felt the impacts of the housing crisis. In 2024, Missouri experienced the largest rent increase in the country, and the cost of homeownership continued to rise....Read More

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – 11 March 2025 — On Monday, March 10, HB 595 was passed by Missouri’s Senate Committee on Local Government, Elections, and Pensions, moving us one step closer to enshrining discrimination against Missouri’s poorest tenants into state law. HB 595, and its companion bill, SB 507, would prevent municipalities in Missouri from...Read More