Check out our Q&A with Advocacy Director Sarah Owsley below. Congratulations on 8 years with Empower Missouri, Sarah!
What part of Empower Missouri’s work do you feel most passionate about, and why?
I seeded Empower Missouri’s Affordable Housing Coalition and in a big way affordable housing policy will always be a passion for me. I can easily make the case that every other social issue is easier when an individual has stable housing, and each community has more power, health, and sustainability when their neighbors are housed. We know what will end homelessness, we know we have the resources to do it, and building that political will has felt so close over the last years at Empower Missouri.
What does “People-Powered Policy Change” mean to you?
Somebody somewhere makes all of the policy decisions. Often that decision is driven by money. I often say the worst thing to happen to the lawmaking process is politics. Competition for power, re-election, personal resources, personal popularity, none of that sustains impactful policy change that helps our communities. My next-door neighbor does, she wants positive policy change to help her children or her clients or her grandparents. When we focus on the human needs of our community members, the policy outcomes change.
What accomplishment are you most proud to have been a part of?
A few months ago a national reporter called me to talk about a Texas think tank which has been pushing some pretty harmful policies across the country. Missouri was one of the first states to introduce and pass homeless criminalization language, and it passed at lightning speed. It gave me whiplash, honestly, my advocacy practice will never be the same. However, advocates in Missouri responded just as quickly. The language was overturned and we have been able to successfully stop it from being re-instated. As amazing as that has been for us, the real accomplishment happened in other states. That reporter shared how many states were introducing this language and killing it early in the process, and how very few have passed it. He asked me why, and I was able to tell him it was us, frankly. When this think tank introduced this language in Missouri, national advocates and other states really didn’t even know how to help us stop it. I pulled national organizations into meetings, I asked them for specific data and language to counter their specific talking points. I called other states and shared with them how this think tank operated here, and how they could pre-empt their talking points. I talked with the attorneys mounting the legal case against it in Missouri, and helped strategize next steps if this plan didn’t work. A nationwide monthly coalition continues to meet and help advocates defeat this language. Our experience significantly impacted how other states were able to message and strategize, and many of the resources I created were able to help other states from passing similar language. I didn’t do it by myself, and I know other advocates were calling for the same things. And still, I could have taken the loss. I could have let others handled it. Instead, Empower Missouri activated in a really spectacular and successful way.
How have you seen the organization grow or change in the time you’ve been involved?
Empower Missouri today is unrecognizable from the organization I joined. I’ve been a part of a three person team at Empower, and not even three fulltime people! We were often working on too many policies to be effective, and still making hard choices to turn our energy elsewhere. We wanted to grow our connection to people at the center of the problems we were advocating on, and we just didn’t have the knowledge or capacity to make that happen. Now Empower has a number of staff members high enough I can’t even remember (15? Is it 42?) working on dozens of policies. We have seeded groups led by personally impacted community members and we continue to find ways to invest in the people of our state. That work has been intentional, difficult, and so rewarding. We’ve moved policies I would have thought impossible. We’ve had many losses, as happens in this space. But the growth and progress and wins will continue for the next generations of advocates coming behind. We’re improving our state and communities in unshakeable ways.
If you could pick one policy change that we could make next, what would it be and why?
Move housing assistance to an entitlement program. Make funding match the need. Getting people in stable housing has positive health, mental health, education, violence prevention, and drug use outcomes. It lowers our overall spending on the collateral consequences of homelessness like jail and emergency room utilization. Right now because housing assistance is in discretionary spending and is awarded as a block grant- only about 1 in 4 Missouri families who need and qualify for housing assistance will get it. Moving everyone into stable housing would be a substantial shift in our community and an impactful way to support the dignity and worth of every person. Homelessness is an unacceptable and completely predictable outcome of a variety of choices made in our public policy, so let’s fix it.
What are your hopes for the next 25 years (or more) of Empower Missouri?
That we close! That we solve it all and we are no longer relevant.
What advice would you give to the next (Board, staff, etc.)?
Decide what you want for our state and make it happen.
What song would you choose as Empower Missouri’s “theme song”?
“Stronger” by Kelly Clarkson
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