Joining Forces' 2023 Advocacy Day

On Tuesday, April 18, Joining Forces took a team of 22 people to Springfield to advocate for two days. It was a remarkable and impactful trip. Here’s a gallery of photos from the trip and an overview! ​

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Who Were the Springfield Advocates? 
In the weeks leading up to this trip, we recruited advocates including: 

• 4 Advocacy Team members on Connections' staff 
• 2 Joining Forces members from the community at large 
• 7 Connections for the Homeless program staff members 
• 2 Connections community partners from Housing Action Illinois 
• 6 Participants in Connections’ programs 

• 1 Connections’ Board Member 

 
With this mix of people, we were able to represent all sides of our issue! We are so grateful to all of our travelers! 
 
What Were We Advocating For? 
We were focused on two “asks” of our legislators in Springfield: 
 
1. Pass Senate Bill 1476.
This bill amends the existing Affordable Housing Planning & Appeal Act (AHPAA), which requires municipalities to create affordable housing plans if less than 10% of their housing is affordable. Joining Forces assisted in writing this new bill, which requires municipalities subject to AHPAA to include tangible goals and strategies in their plans. The bill also allows community members to appeal municipal decisions against affordable housing and puts administrative changes in place to make it easier for the State of Illinois to implement the bill. This bill is a pre-cursor to future bills that will increase the level of affordability municipalities are required to meet. Stay tuned for next year! 

2. Increase Housing-Related Line Items in the State Budget.
As legislators negotiate the budget, we shared the need for the following increases: 

• Homelessness Prevention Program: Increase the budget from $10M to $15M 
• Homeless Youth Program: Increase the budget from $7.28M to $12.28M 
• Supportive Housing Services: Increase the budget from $42.59M to $57.09M 
• Emergency & Transitional Housing Program: Increase the budget from $10.38M to $61.38M 

 
How Did We Get There & Where Did We Stay? 
Since our group totaled 22 people, we went to Springfield in 3 vans and one car, with two people taking the train from Chicago. Many thanks to our drivers! We stayed overnight at a hotel near the Capitol Building. 
 
What Did We Do? 
On Tuesday, after arriving in Springfield between 11 and 11:30 a.m., we did the following: 

• Checked into the hotel and had lunch! 
• Took a tour of the Capitol (cut short) 
• Attended a pre-arranged meeting with House Majority Leader Robyn Gabel and Illinois State Senator Laura Fine.  
• Had some free time (some people went to hearings in the Capitol, some walked around the old Lincoln home, some took a nap! 
• Went to dinner and prepared for the next day 

  
On the following day, Wednesday, April 19, our lobbying group met at the Capitol Building after breakfast and did the following: 

• Wore our new lavender Joining Forces/Connections for the Homeless shirts! 
• Observed some Committee meetings to get a sense of legislative proceedings 
• Had one team stay in the Capitol’s rotunda and catch the attention of legislators as they went into their meetings. Our advocates shared their stories and information about our bills and asked if we could count on their votes.  

• Had another team walk to the Stratton building, where most offices for House members were, and either speak to legislators if they were around, or leave them fact sheets, the tiny houses we made, and memos, asking them to support our bills. 

• Had lunch and then either went home or went to see a replica of Lincoln’s old neighborhood before heading out 

  
How Did Legislators Respond? 
Meeting with Leader Gabel and Senator Fine gave us an opportunity to talk about the bills we’re advocating for and share information about housing insecurity in Evanston. Connections staff who work in in-take, youth services, prevention, and rapid re-housing shared their first-hand experience regarding how housing insecurity has worsened since the COVID-influenced eviction moratorium ended and housing prices have gone up.  
 
During our meetings with Gabel and Fine, they commented on how important it was that we had people with us who could tell real stories about how these bills could impact us significantly if they are passed. These stories give people who have never struggled with housing insecurity or worked with homeless people some perspective on the gravity of homelessness in Illinois. The stories also illustrate how more funding towards housing and laws that would enforce affordable housing plans would help with these pervasive issues by providing needed resources to the homeless.   
 
How Did the Advocates Respond? 
Everyone on the trip seems to have found rewarding--and very tiring! The experience was a combination of complex logistics, hurrying to meetings, waiting for legislators, standing around, and talking to legislators about causes that turned out to be very important for every member of the group. It was stressful to stop legislators in the rotunda and give them concise elevator pitches for our causes, but very satisfying to have done so and to have gotten them to listen. We covered miles walking to various offices to talk to legislators or leave notes for them if they weren’t there. But it was fun to see a row of desks with our little houses on them, knowing that our message would stand out because of the work we put in.  
 
And it was gratifying that almost every legislator that we talked to said that what we’re doing is good and they loved seeing how many people were in our group. It was also rewarding to hear the takeaways from first-time advocates as they made a real connection between their own experiences and the things we advocated for.  
 
What’s Next? 
The budget and, we hope, SB 1476 will be passed at the end of May. We will have a celebration at that point! 
 
Then we will start planning for next year—choosing our policy priorities, working with legislators to find sponsors, building our base of advocates, and planning at least one trip to Springfield! 
 
You can get involved by sending an email to [email protected].​