We are pleased to share Funders for Housing and Opportunity's FY24 Impact Snapshot, highlighting grantee partners' significant progress across three grantmaking priorities—Narrative Change; Policy, Advocacy, and Organizing; and Elevating What Works—as well as our work to align philanthropy to support housing justice. FHO’s fiscal year runs between July 1 and June 30.
By uniting diverse funders across sectors to support organizations working to protect renters and solve homelessness, we have continued to make meaningful progress toward ensuring everyone has access to affordable, secure homes, free from the impacts of systemic racism.
A few key highlights:
Over $23 million invested in housing justice initiatives since 2017, including $2.9 million in new and/or renewal grants in FY24.
To date, FHO grantee partners have preserved or leveraged $130.4 billion in state, local, and federal revenue for affordable housing and contributed to 201 policy advances.
Narrative Change grantee partners have reached over 100 million people, moving them to see housing as a basic need.
FHO members report FHO influences the direction of their work, contributes to ongoing learning, and addresses critical housing issues.
A note from FHO Executive Director Jeanne Fekade-Sellassie:
While we work in a broader context of societal tumult, we have found that there is strength and power in alignment. And from our vantage point, we are seeing historic levels of coordination and collaboration across the field of housing justice and the movement for housing as a basic need and human right. Whether in spite of, or in reaction to, a politically chaotic time, our communities are working as collaboratively as ever toward a future where renters and people who didn’t have places to call home can have access to safe, stable homes they can afford, free from the barriers and harms of systemic racism.
The threats to this vision continue to roll in—an increasingly organized effort to fine, arrest, and ticket people experiencing homelessness and a Supreme Court decision that protected this approach; attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion; and the list goes on.
But shared commitment, strengthened by mutually beneficial relationships with and between philanthropic peers and frontline advocates, provided the grounding for meaningful progress on narrative change, cross-sector advancements at the local level., and policy wins..
This past year, FHO continued to deepen our relationships and serve as a bridge and learning conduit between funders and grassroots players and expanded our team and our capacity to support and align the field. Our grantee partners are leading on-the-ground strategies at the local, state, and national levels to foster a collective vision for housing justice and win transformational change.
Housing is not just as a roof over our heads but the foundation under our feet, on top of which all of life’s outcomes—health, education, economic mobility, social justice—are balanced. While the political tides rise and fall and we still have a long way to go, I am proud of the progress we’ve made and optimistic about the future of our work—together.
As of October 2024, FHO is the Fund for Housing and Opportunity.