Welcome to the e-Voices MONDAY MINUTE, your weekly email newsletter from New Mexico Voices for Children. Please take a minute to add your voice to the pressing issues of the day. Also, tell us what issues you'd like to know more about so we can tailor the MONDAY MINUTE to your interests. Thanks!

August 14, 2006

Home, Sweet, Affordable Home

We only have one issue to bring you this week, so we're going to go into more detail than usual. We hope you'll bear with us because it's an important one.

Owning a home can have a positive impact on every aspect of a family's life - home-owning gives a family more stability and safety, and makes them invested members of their community. Children are healthier and do better in school when their parents own a home. But for too many families, the great American Dream of owning a home is just that - a dream.

To help address this issue, Albuquerque City Councilors Debbie O'Malley and Isaac Benton have cosponsored the Workforce Housing Opportunities Act. The Act would provide much-needed resources for nonprofit and for-profit developers to build high-quality, mixed-income housing projects that would include new and rehabilitated homes. The new homes would be built as infill in areas that are already experiencing revitalization, are along public transit corridors, and have existing infrastructure such as schools.

The plan would free families from what's called "rent burden," promote diversity, and improve older neighborhoods while stemming gentrification. Not only do too many rent-burdened families spend up to half of their income on rent, they also never build equity.

The Act specifies that the public dollars be used in a way that preserves affordability for future working families - which is the same philosophy embraced by Habitat for Humanity.

What You Can Do:

• Call or email your city councilor and the mayor and ask them to support the Workforce Housing Opportunities Act. Call 768-3100, click here for links to each councilor's email address http://www.cabq.gov/council/ccmeet.html, or send a group email to citycouncil@cabq.gov. Reach the mayor's office at 768-3019 or email mayor@cabq.gov.
• Attend the City Council meeting on Monday, August 21st when this bill is expected to be brought up again. City Council meetings are held in the basement of City Hall (at 5th St. and Marquette NW) and usually begin after 5pm. Show up early if you want to sign up to comment.
• Read up on the act by visiting the website of 1000 Friends of New Mexico, the group that's behind the push to get this legislation passed: http://www.1000friends-nm.org/WorkforceHousing06.htm
• Read an op-ed written by Councilor O'Malley that was published in the Albuquerque Tribune: http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/op_commentaries/article/0,2565,ALBQ_19866_4871585,00.html
  

A Word About Involvement

We know, we know, we're always asking you to contact one elected official or another to ask them to support (or not) one issue or another. That's because one of our core values at New Mexico Voices for Children is Civic Participation. We believe everyone's voice has a place in our government.

Many people think civic participation begins and ends with voting. But it doesn't. While voting may be the single most effective way to participate in government, it is far from the only way. Civic participation can be anything from attending your neighborhood association meetings to running for public office - and everything in between.

While money seems to do the most talking in our current political system, we know for a fact that elected officials listen to what their constituents say. They read your letters and emails. And while they don't know whether you voted for them in the last election, you can bet they'll want your vote in the next.

So get out there and participate! And take your kids - it's the best way to ensure that they'll be involved citizens when they grow up.

Race Matters Task Force

The next meeting of the RACE MATTERS Task Force has been changed! Please join us on Wednesday August 23 at 2:00 p.m. to discuss the recommendations that resulted from the RACE MATTERS conference and how to take those recommendations forward. Visit http://www.nmvoices.org/racematters.htm for more information and to register.