When Congress returns in January, the U.S. Senate will face a series of votes that will determine the future of federal housing programs Missourians rely on to stay housed. In late December, Senate leaders made progress in negotiations to prevent a February shutdown. The negotiations focused on an early January vote on a “minibus” bill...Read More

Advocate (n.) a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy (rhymes with kit)  Advocate (v.) publicly recommend or support (rhymes with ate)  The term advocate (both pronunciations! 🙂) piqued my interest and became an integral piece of my vocabulary one random day during a Nutrition for Health class inside the Scully...Read More

Below is a quick summary of key issues for Empower Missouri in the upcoming legislative session. If you would like to learn more, please register for our Legislative Preview webinar on December 16th from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.  We’re just four weeks away from the start of the 2026 Missouri legislative session. Prefiling began...Read More

Homeless prevention programs are the latest anti-poverty program under threat from the federal government. On November 13th, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it would disregard the existing two year planning process (2025-2026) and require homeless prevention programs to reapply for funding for 2026. This change, announced only seven weeks before...Read More

If you’ve felt like rent keeps rising faster than paychecks, you’re not imagining it. Federal rental assistance—Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs), public housing funding, homelessness programs, and key state and local tools like HOME and Community Development Block Grants (CDBG)—are the bedrock that help low-income Missourians stay housed, even as rent goes up.   Right now, Washington...Read More

Across rural Missouri, tenants face moldy ceilings, unfair rent hikes, and investor landlords that benefit from no one pushing back. But when neighbors get organized, they can win repairs, stop harassment, and make housing safer and more affordable for everyone.  Empower Missouri created “Standing Together: A Simple Guide to Tenant Organizing in Small Towns and...Read More

Empower Missouri strongly condemns President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) on “Ending Crime & Disorder on America’s Streets.” The order is riddled with misleading statements, prejudicial language, and outright lies about our neighbors who are unhoused. We seek to correct this misinformation and encourage our partners to stand ready to mitigate, and then be prepared to...Read More

Every year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) releases its Out of Reach report—an eye-opening look at what it actually costs to rent a modest apartment in America. The 2025 edition confirms what many Missourians already know from experience: affordable housing is increasingly out of reach for working people across the state. At the...Read More

Over the last three months, we have published a series of blog posts investigating the housing crisis in the United States. In our first piece, we defined the current crisis. In the second post, we examined the economic factors that created and are sustaining the problem. And in our most recent post, we looked at...Read More