At a recent Day at the Capitol event, a reporter asked whether I knew a renter who had experienced habitability problems.
I answered, “What do you want to know?”
The reporter asked again: “Do you know someone who has experienced or is currently experiencing habitability problems?”
I replied, “You are talking to the person. That person is me.”
That exchange has stayed with me because it exposed a truth we still do not say out loud enough: many of the people advocating for safe, decent and affordable housing are struggling with housing insecurity themselves.
For many grassroots housing advocates, especially Black women, the line between professional work and personal reality is painfully thin. We spend our days helping families navigate broken systems, pushing for policy change, attending hearings and fighting for housing justice. Then we go home to our own rent burdens, poor housing conditions, maintenance failures and impossible choices.
I know because I have lived it.
After being away for four years, I moved back to metro Atlanta and quickly learned I could not afford to live in the city. Like too many others, I took a map, put my finger on what was close enough to Atlanta and hoped for the best.
That is how my family ended up in an extended stay motel.
What was supposed to be temporary became three years. I could pay the weekly fee, barely, but that was the trap. I could pay enough to stay, but not enough to save for a security deposit and first month’s rent. Every dollar went toward survival, not stability.
Eventually, a Motel to Home flyer appeared in the door. I saw it while stepping outside with other residents to pick up our children from the bus and return “home.” That flyer became a way out.
I was fortunate. I had no evictions, only an old unpaid power bill from the time I became homeless in 2012. I eventually found an apartment with what is often called naturally occurring affordable housing. It was not ideal, but it was better than being crammed into one room.
But affordability without habitability is not housing justice.
That first winter, the furnace went out for six months. Then came a faint gas smell. Report after report was filed. Maintenance came and went. Finally, the gas company shut the gas off because the leak was serious enough to require action. So after days spent advocating for housing, I went home to nights with electric space heaters and pots of boiling water on the stove.
By spring, the air conditioning had gone out too. My days were filled with housing advocacy and my nights with a window unit and fans, trying to make a home livable. Add in broken mailboxes, multiple ownership changes and revolving property management, and it becomes clear that having a lease does not always mean having stability.
To be fair, my complex now has a strong property manager, and with support from the municipality, real improvements have been made. I am grateful for that. But the stability still feels fragile. Another sale, another management switch, and we could be right back where we started.
For too long, I hoped I was an anomaly. Caseworker during the day. Client at night.
I am not.
At the 2026 National Low Income Housing Coalition Policy Forum, advocates and tenant leaders from across the country described the same contradiction: fighting for housing justice while struggling to keep a roof over their own heads.
Across Georgia and beyond, many grassroots housing advocates are living this reality. They are pinching pennies, or nickels since pennies are being phased out, just to stay housed. And while doing that, they are still splitting those nickels to help someone else with one night in a hotel, a hot meal or enough support to simply breathe.
That is what too many people in power fail to see.
The people closest to the pain are often carrying the work with the fewest resources. They are asked to tell their stories but not shape the strategy. Invited to the panel but not the budget meeting. Quoted in the report but not trusted with the grant.
It is time for philanthropy to adequately fund grassroots organizations led by people with living and lived experience.
Not tokenize them.
Not spotlight them for inspiration and move on.
Fund them.
Study after study and convening after convening point to the same conclusion. Yet the organizations led by those who know the crisis firsthand remain underfunded and overlooked. Their expertise is treated as anecdotal when it is, in fact, essential.
Bills are passed and celebrated as victories but often fail to move the needle because there is too little enforcement, too little accountability and too little follow-through.
Meanwhile, too many allies get stuck debating terminology while people are suffering in real time. Words matter. But not more than making sure Georgians have access to decent, safe, sanitary, healthy and affordable housing in thriving communities, regardless of ZIP code.
And let us be fully honest: I have watched advocates breeze past someone who is unsheltered without speaking, acknowledging them or even offering a simple nod, only to walk inside and advocate for affordable housing and homelessness policy.
That contradiction should trouble all of us.
You cannot claim to fight for people you refuse to see.
Lived experience must be treated as expertise, not anecdote. It should shape policy, program design and where philanthropic dollars go.
To philanthropy: invest directly in grassroots leaders with lived experience. Fund their organizations sustainably. Pay for their leadership, not just their stories.
To policymakers: stop calling bills victories when they do not materially change conditions on the ground. Pass laws that are enforceable. Resource implementation. Demand accountability.
Because sometimes the advocate is also the applicant. Sometimes the leader is also the tenant. Sometimes the caseworker becomes the client.
I know, because I did.
