The National Lived Experience Leadership Project

Project Progress Report: The National Lived Experience Leadership Project

Executive Summary

The National Lived Experience Leadership Project, spearheaded by the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH), represents a paradigm shift in addressing housing insecurity across the United States. Rather than treating homelessness as a personal or merely charitable issue, this initiative is grounded in the principle that solutions must be led by those who have lived through the systemic crisis firsthand.

By integrating people experiencing homelessness into local and national decision-making structures, the project aims to replace punitive, law-enforcement-heavy approaches with structural, grassroots solutions. This progress report outlines the development of the leadership process, the milestones of its signature conference, and the localized impact of State Captains and regional field sites.

Growth of the Lived Experience Leadership Process

The core objective of the leadership process is to move past tokenism and place unhoused or formerly unhoused individuals in positions of genuine, structural authority.

• Shifting the Narrative: Historically, federal policies have been incremental attending to the immediate symptoms of poverty while ignoring structural inequities and the lack of affordable housing. The leadership process trains individuals to shift the public discourse from short-term charity to long-term legislative solutions.

• Capacity Building: Through initiatives like the Lived Experience Leadership Academy, which has now engaged over 400 attendees and achieved a 51% success rate, participants receive formal development in community organizing, public speaking, and legislative advocacy. This structured path equips individuals to lead grassroots efforts like the Bring America Home NOW (BAHN) Campaign, a comprehensive nationwide push to pass federal legislation addressing root causes.

• The National Board Expansion: The leadership structure has expanded via strategic integrations. For example, partnerships have paved the way for bodies like the National Lived Experience Leadership and Advocacy Board (NLEAB), a compensated, 15-member board dedicated to ensuring that national policy decisions remain strictly accountable to local, diverse insights.

The National Lived Experience Leadership Conference (NLELC)

The annual conference serves as the primary national anchor for the project, allowing grassroots advocates to "break bread," share resources, and align their federal agendas.

Recent Milestones & Evolution

• 2025 Conference (Cincinnati, OH): Held from November 17–19, 2025, this landmark gathering successfully introduced a hybrid framework, utilizing both in-person and virtual sessions to maximize accessibility for individuals facing travel barriers.
• 2026 Conference (West Coast): Scheduled for September 28–30, 2026, the upcoming annual event is being hosted in partnership with West Coast housing agencies like Destination: Home.

Core Components of the Conference

• Action Labs & Skill-Building: Immersive workshops targeting the decriminalization of homelessness and local organizing.
• Equitable Logistics: To minimize barriers to entry, the conference heavily relies on a robust Scholarship Program that covers registration fees, lodging, and travel logistics.
• Language Access: Strategic partnerships ensure that translation and interpretation services are provided in over 250 languages, accommodating Limited English Proficiency (LEP) advocates.

State Captains and Regional Field Sites

To ensure national policy efforts reflect the diverse needs of both urban and rural environments, the NCH organizes its grassroots base through a localized network.

The Role of State Captains

State Captains function as the critical liaison between federal legislative campaigns and local realities. They are tasked with:

1. Bringing Local Voices to Congress: Channeling local testimonies directly to national media and federal decision-makers.
2. Monitoring Local Policy: Keeping track of communities where the civil rights of unhoused individuals are actively under attack or criminalized.

Regional Field Sites

The deployment of targeted regional field sites allows the organization to scale its response across distinct geographic realities.

Region / Field Site Hub

Core Grassroots Focus

California / West Coast

Combating severe affordability crises, building systemic equity boards, and hosting national training conferences.

The South (e.g., Texas, Florida, Atlanta)

Fighting active local municipal pushes to criminalize public sleeping and unhoused populations.

The Midwest & Central US

Addressing deep systemic poverty, child housing insecurity, and shelter safety.

Through this multi-layered framework—from local field sites and State Captains up to the national conference stage—the project successfully ensures that those closest to the problem are positioned at the center of the solution.

Links:

• http://www.nationalhomeless.org