📌 Take Action: 30 Ways to Support People in Need of Shelter
'Housing Now!' National Day of Action is April 22, 2025
Welcome to How to Resist, a newsletter that shares acts of nonviolent resistance, mutual aid, and community building for ordinary folks.
I hope this inspires new ideas and helps you discover ways to engage that are right for you. If you like this content, act on it! Find something today that speaks to you and make it happen! In the words of Anne Frank, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
What you need to know
In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that people living and sleeping outside can be arrested. In the 9 months since this ruling, over 150 cities have passed laws making it illegal to be homeless.1
On March 14, 2025, President Trump signed the executive order “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” which ordered that the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”2
The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness coordinates the efforts of 19 federal agencies and has an annual budget of 4 million dollars. 3
This move signals that the administration intends to target the successful, bipartisan Housing First program, which seeks barrier-free access to housing options for unhoused individuals and families. Although bipartisan in its founding, conservative supporters have abandoned the program after Project 2025 labeled it a “far-left idea” and faulted the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness for promoting it.4
What does this mean?
Homelessness has been criminalized without addressing its root causes: the severe lack of affordable housing and diminishing public assistance. As a result, we face increased homelessness and fewer state-provided solutions.5 Now more than ever, our neighbors experiencing homelessness need our help, solidarity, and advocacy.
A note about mutual aid
Mutual aid is not charity; it's about people coming together to meet each other's survival needs while critically examining why these needs are unmet. It aims to mobilize communities, foster solidarity, and build movements through grassroots collaboration, inclusive participation, and shared decision-making, ensuring those being assisted are actively involved in the process.6
People first
Phrases like “people experiencing homelessness,” “person without housing,” and “individual facing housing instability” emphasize a person’s humanity and acknowledge that they are individuals in challenging circumstances. It's crucial to maintain a person’s dignity, especially during times when they may struggle to hold onto their sense of humanity.
30 Ways to Support People in Need of Shelter
Find a shelter near you
Working with shelters and folks experiencing homelessness
Volunteer at a shelter
Volunteer to build or fix shelters through Habitat for Humanity
Offer professional skills, e.g. carpentry, plumbing, clerical, serving meals, distributing goods
Organize an event at a shelter
Share skills and hobbies
Provide job training
Invite folks to a community event, e.g. worship service, public concert, picnic, city council meeting
Work with children, e.g. play, sports, tutoring, after-school activities
Encourage people experiencing homelessness to contact officials.
Start or support a street newspaper in your area through the International Association of Street Newspapers
Get out the vote
Work with You Don’t Need a Home to Vote to help get out the vote among those who are unhoused
Help with a voter registration drive [Toolkit from National Council for the Homeless]
Organize an event for National Homeless and Low-Income Voter Registration Week (last week in September)
Share voter rights information
Provide transportation to the polling location
Material Support
Reach out to your local shelter and ask if they need clothes, household goods, computers, cell phones, furniture, books, toys, games, stuffed animals, diapers, etc.
Make and distribute care kits that contain toiletries, snacks, and small clothing items.
In winter, organize drives for blankets, coats, hats, mittens, and socks.
Financial Support
Raise funds for a program, shelter, or soup kitchen.
Consider giving cash or gift cards directly to folks experiencing homelessness.
Advocacy
Review the National Coalition for Homelessness’s 10-Point Plan to End Homelessness in Your City, County or State
Join a coalition or organization such as the National Coalition for the Homeless, Housing not Handcuffs from the National Homelessness Law Center), National Low Income Housing Coalition
Sign up for legislative alerts from the National Coalition for the Homeless
Attend local public meetings and speak up for low-income housing, group homes, shelters, and homelessness prevention programs.
Work with your local shelter to invite elected officials to visit.
Call or write to media outlets
Organize a memorial service for National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day on Dec 21st [organizing manual]
Expanding the circle
Get others involved from your friends, church/synagogue/mosque, school, work, club
Host Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week at your school or work
Educate yourself
Learn about homelessness in your state through these State Fact Sheets from the National Alliance to End Homelessness
Check out the Voice of the Homeless podcast
Housing Now! National Day of Action April 22, 2025
Participate in the Housing Now! National Day of Action on April 22, 2025
Can’t be in DC for the rally? Pick something on this list that resonates with you and participate where you are!
Did you try something in this Action Kit?
We want to hear about it! What did you try, how did it go, what did you learn?! Share your experience in the comment section below.
Resources
National Alliance to End Homelessness https://endhomelessness.org/
National Coalition for the Homeless https://nationalhomeless.org/
National Homelessness Law Center https://homelesslaw.org/
National Low-Income Housing Coalition https://nlihc.org/take-action
The National Alliance to End Homelessness http://www.endhomelessness.org
The National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness https://homelesslaw.org/
Homes for the Homeless/Institute for Children and Poverty http://www.homesforthehomeless.com/
National Health Care for the Homeless Council http://www.nhchc.org/
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Housing NOW! National Day of Action. (2025, March 19). National Coalition for the Homeless - Building a Movement to End Homelessness; National Coalition for the Homeless. https://nationalhomeless.org/housing-now-national-day-of-action/
Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy. (2025, March 15). The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/continuing-the-reduction-of-the-federal-bureaucracy/
DeParle, J. (2025, April 9). Trump’s Targeting of Homeless Agency Signals Sharp Shift in Policy. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/us/politics/trump-homelessness.html
ibid.
State of Homelessness: 2024 Edition. (2024, August 5). National Alliance to End Homelessness. https://endhomelessness.org/state-of-homelessness/
Spade, D. (2020). Mutual aid: Building solidarity during this crisis (and the next). Verso Books. https://www.versobooks.com/products/2722-mutual-aid
HUD operated. At risk resource
Thank you for sharing! This compilation of available resources is awesome! Please keep up this great work. ✌️
Well done! Homelessness is so hard on people and can cost lives. Thank you so much for providing this toolkit for those who would like to help those trying to survive without a home to be safe in.