Bringing America Home: The Organizers' Toolkit

How to use the materials on this website to win legislative and public support for Bringing America Home: the Campaign, including the Bringing America Home Act.

* links to the materials: Sample press release | Sample Op-Ed | Sample Resolution | Factsheets | Sample Letter to Your Representative *

Dear local organizers,

Thank you for your interest in Bringing America Home! As organizers, your support for Bringing America Home is crucial to bolstering local support for the Campaign and the Act.

In this kit, you will find:

1. Rationale for Bringing America Home: the Campaign -- 5 basic needs on which the Campaign is based
2. Five factsheets, one for each rationale for the Campaign, outlining people's basic needs and how they relate to homelessness
3. A one-page summary of all the different legislative pieces that comprise Bringing America Home: the Campaign
4. A one-page summary of the Bringing America Home Act, the centerpiece of the Campaign
5. A Sample Press Release for the Bringing America Home Act
6. A Sample Op-Ed for the Bringing America Home Act
7. A Sample Resolution for the Bringing America Home Act
8. A Sample Letter to your Congressional Representative asking him/her to support the Bringing America Home Act

The materials in this kit are designed as educational and organizing tools, so feel free to reprint and distribute them! We especially encourage you to involve your local media and City Councils using the sample press release, op-ed, and resolution for the Bringing America Home Act.

To make it easier for you to use these materials, you can download them from this website.

Thanks so much for your dedication and help - together, we can finally bring America home! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks again,

Michael Stoops, acting Executive Director, mstoops@nationalhomeless.org, 202.462.4822

What YOU can do to support Bringing America Home: the Campaign and help pass the Bringing America Home Act:

• Spread the word!
• Talk about the Campaign and the Act at shelters, colleges, places of worship, etc.
• Plan an activity (see next section)
• Participate in a National Day of Action (stay tuned for details)
• Hold a concert
• Write or call your Congresspeople
• Visit your Congresspeople
• Contact your local media
• Get City Council to endorse the Act…then contact your local media about it
• Write an Op-Ed piece for your local paper
• Hold a press conference

Suggested Activities

The following is a list of suggested events to garner support for the Bringing America Home Campaign and the Bringing America Home Act. Please feel free to develop new activities for your community. If your idea generates a good response, let us know so that we can share your event with other communities!

• Organize a "One Night Without a Home" awareness sleep out in front of city hall or another strategic location.
  
  
• Host educational forums on hunger and homelessness. Invite people who are or have been homeless to share their experiences, as well as service providers and community speakers. Show videos and distribute fact sheets or other informational material (refer to the National Coalition for the Homeless' website: www.nationalhomeless.org or www.bringingamericahome.org).
  
  
• Register people who are homeless or low-income to vote.
  
  
• Organize a Lobby Day for your local legislators or a Call-in Day to your Congresspersons about the importance of the Bringing America Home Act.
  
  
• Have a booth, either at an event or another strategic location, where people can write to their Congresspersons about the importance of the Bringing America Home Act.
  
  
• Sponsor a benefit concert with local musicians. Distribute information about the Campaign and the Act and donate collected money to a local shelter.
  
  
• Distribute the enclosed materials about the Bringing America Home: the Campaign. Please feel free to distribute these far and wide - photocopy them, put them on tables at conferences, give them to teachers, e-mail them, link to them from your web page, etc. These can also be found online at www.bringingamericahome.org. The factsheets are also great to give to reporters; facts are always good for articles.
  
  
• Distribute the enclosed summary of the Bringing America Home Act, which is the centerpiece of the Campaign. This piece is great to bring with you when talking with your Congresspeople or local politicians. We strongly encourage you to get your City Council to endorse the Bringing America Home Act (more about that later), and this summary provides a good, succinct explanation of what the Act will do. This summary is also great to give to reporters who are writing about the Act.
  
  
• Get local press coverage for the Bringing America Home Act (note: can involve using the sample press release in this packet)
  

  Local press strategies are key to garnering national support for this Act. We strongly encourage you to plan local events around the Bringing America Home Act, or if you cannot plan an event, we encourage you to fill in local information in the underlined spaces of the sample press release and send it to your local media contacts. The more people who know about the Act, the better!
  

  Hints for getting media: Any sort of event works better than just sending a press release. Protests tend to work well, especially in smaller cities. Keep in mind what kind of stories reporters want to cover - outside events work the best. Putting a human face to the issues is important and gets reporters' attention (and readers' attention) as well. Make sure that you call your good reporter contact to ensure that they got the press release and so you can convince them to come and cover the event. It is helpful to alert your community newspaper early on. Radio stations are also an effective way to get your message across.
  

  It is helpful to be creative in advertising your activities. Some suggestions are bookmarks, door hangers, posters, or even t-shirts. The National Coalition for the Homeless may be able to help you create flyers and posters for the events.
  

  Also, make sure you let the National Coalition for the Homeless know about Bringing America Home activities in your community! NCH might be able to provide you with some publicity support as well. Phone: 202.462.4822. Email: mlee@nationalhomeless.org.

• Get an Op-Ed in your local paper supporting the Bringing America Home Act (note: can involve using the sample op-ed in this packet)

  Op-Eds are amazing ways to get your opinion across in your local paper (note: most papers will only print Op-Eds of local residents). We strongly encourage you to fill in local information in the underlined spaces of the sample Op-Ed and send it to your local newspapers. It's often said that one Op-Ed is worth more than one article because you can get across exactly what you want to say. Thus, it's critical to get as many Op-Eds as possible in newspapers across the country!

• Get your City Council to adopt a Resolution supporting the Bringing America Home Act (note: can involve using the sample resolution in this packet)

  Endorsements are a powerful way to build support for legislation. Every group works endorsements differently, but one thing that we have found to be very effective is getting City Councils to support legislation. Thus, we strongly encourage you to insert your local data into the Sample Resolution and try to get your City Council to endorse it; it's best to find one friend on the City Council and get him/her to introduce it. This is where the summary of the Act and the factsheets may come in handy.

Thanks again for your hard work, and best of luck! Please keep in touch and tell us what's worked for you!