Sponsored by Project H.O.M.E., the Vote for Homes! Coalition is a nonpartisan advocacy group based in Philadelphia working to register and mobilize low income and homeless people to vote. This highly organized and involved method of promoting an advocacy agenda while empowering low income voters is inspiring. The Vote for Homes! Coalition has registered over 8,500 voters and proven to successfully help homeless individuals overcome voting barriers.

The coalition has been active since the Philadelphia mayoral race in 1999, when they embarked on an effort to get issues affecting low-income citizens, particularly housing, on candidates' agenda. It has now grown into a project that empowers and educates an entire block of citizens.

Vote for Homes! began when the 1999 election presented itself as an opportunity to intentionally bring together like minded organizations focused on issues of affordable housing and social services. The result was a coalition made up of social service organizations that has three main goals:

• Raise issues of affordable housing, living-wage jobs, and quality services in the Pennsylvania elections for Governor and U.S. Senate,
• Empower people who are living on low-incomes, including those who are homeless, living with disabilities, or ex-offenders, to become involved in the electoral process
• Protect and ensure the voting rights of all citizens, particularly those who are frequently disenfranchised.

From Candidate Education to Get-Out-the-vote Drives

Voter education and get-out-the-vote drives can make the connection that voting is a way to help bring an important issue, such as access to affordable housing, to the attention of future lawmakers and the public at large. When winning candidates become elected officials it is important for them to know that a significant number of people voting care about the issue and many are from neighborhoods impacted by a particular problem, such as affordable housing. This is why the coalition started out with sponsoring candidate forums, and then started to produce voter guides.

Now Vote for Homes! has expanded to increase the voting power of people in need of affordable housing. While Pennsylvania has eliminated some of the legal barriers to voting for homeless people, societal obstacles remain. Many people living in shelters or on the street do not know they are can vote, or do not believe their vote makes a difference. The Votes for Homes! Coalition works hard to counter these myths.

Vote for Homes! educates people about their voting rights and provides tools to overcome social barriers. For example, Jennine Miller, campaign co-chair of the Vote for Homes! Coalition has been involved since the beginning. She says a major obstacle to voter registration has simply been misinformation. Most people do not know that the homeless in Pennsylvania can fulfill the residency requirement for voter registration by using the address of a shelter or facility as a temporary address. To offset confusion, Vote for Homes! hosts education events at shelters, soup kitchens, health centers, probation offices, and jails where they register voters and distribute voter guides and information. They have found these educational events to be very effective.

Getting Nonprofits Involved

The Vote for Homes! website has resources to help spark informal educational discussions with potential voters. The coalition then provides tools and resources to address other barriers, such as lack of transportation and tips on providing rides to the polls on Election Day and informational signs for shelters to display. Another resource that has proven very successful and effective is an interactive true/false quiz on voting rights. The success lays partly in the ability to communicate that voting impacts their community, it is through the interaction that makes their work so powerful.

Sharing by Pairing

A unique and successful method Vote for Homes! uses is pairing a homeless or former homeless person with another member of the community. The pair shares resources and knowledge otherwise unavailable to both and the benefits of reaching across class and sometimes racial barriers. Everyone involved becomes energized and more committed to the effort. Miller experiences this energy, saying the work "gets under their skin." She truly appreciates witnessing the volunteer's enthusiasm, and the shared feeling of wanting to be a part of something. Shelters have produced valuable volunteers that help with future voter registration and education efforts.

Educating Poll Workers

The project has found that poll workers' lack of knowledge about voting rights is a big problem. For example, many poll workers do not know that voters are allowed to have assistance inside the voting machine. They also do not understand the right to a provisional ballot, which requires them to allow people whose names do not appear on the voter rolls to vote on a special form, with eligibility determined by officials before the vote counts are completed. Vote for Homes! has provided education for poll workers to reduce the number of conflicts that only create voting discouragement.

Logistics: How Vote for Homes! Funds and Operates

On the structure and workings of the coalition, Miller commented that pulling together resources for the project was frustrating in the beginning. The ability to raise funds has been hit or miss. Organizational membership, growing since 1999, primarily consists of shelters and homeless service providers, and civic and religious groups. And the nature of elections is that some years are more exciting than others. In the past some election years have been easier than during other off, less exciting campaigns.

Miller said the hardest aspect of the work is to keep the energy growing between elections. It has to be apart of an ongoing effort. Project Home has an advocacy committee that works year round on recruitment. When asked how she would advise nonprofits interested in doing similar work, Miller suggested taking advantage of the resources provided by the county board of elections, and to not be afraid of holding them accountable. Understanding the legal issues was also very important, and something they needed help with, but founded guidance from Alliance for Justice.

Building on Success

Because of the group's success, support, growth, and hard work, increased funding has allowed them to expand their efforts. For this past election, the coalition received a grant to work with the incarcerated and ex-offenders. In Pennsylvania, convicted felons released from prison, people awaiting trial, and those on probation, parole, and house arrest can vote. Vote for Homes! went into prisons to educate those eligible to vote.

Through specific work such as trainings, registration, education, mobilization, election day activities, and by providing information on voting rights, this coalition has created a model of advocacy that is highly successful. Notably, Vote for Homes! has sought to export their knowledge and expertise through training so that others throughout the state can do similar work. It is a unique model that could work very well for other organizations. However, it is difficult to do so in a very large state with limited resources that need to be used at their home base. This past fall the group participated in a statewide conference call where organizations could share information and discuss the voter education and mobilization work going on throughout Pennsylvania.