1. Learn about Columbia’s housing crisis and the Affordable Housing Coalition.
2. Connect with Boone County Upward Mobility Safe and Affordable Housing data & workgroups.
3. Provide an “essentials” care basket to a newly homeless family.
4. Volunteer with an agency serving our unhoused neighbors.
5. Pay for a one week hotel stay for a family with children.
6. Help unhoused families furnish their homes (join a Love Seat Furniture Bank delivery team or help a family in transition move their belongings).
7. Become a Love Columbia housing search coach (help people find affordable housing, enhance their rentability, view properties/talk with prospective landlords, learn tenant rights and responsibilities, and begin the path to homeownership).
8. Become a Love Columbia financial or career coach.
9. Pay an old utility bill preventing a family from securing permanent housing.
10. Sponsor an Extra Mile transition home by paying utility bills for one month, one year or ongoing.
11. Donate unneeded furniture and housewares to The Love Seat Furniture Bank.
12. Donate or lend property you own to the Extra Mile Homes program.
13. Help inform city, county and state officials and your neighbors about the Columbia housing crisis and urge them to make solutions a priority.
14. Promote policy changes to make it more feasible for private builders to construct affordable housing (remove regulatory barriers, waive fees, create resources through a community housing trust).
15. Promote community mindset changes. Think smaller units, prefabrication, shared or multigenerational living spaces.
16. Champion policies other communities have used to create affordable housing; look at Columbia with new eyes to see unused or underutilized property.
17. Join a local commission, council, or board that influences housing policy decisions and advocate for changes that will promote increasing affordable housing stock.
18. If you are a property owner, consider renting to someone with a Housing Choice Voucher or at less than market rate.
19. Buy property to use for affordable housing.
20. Promote neighborhood revitalization by choosing to purchase or repair an abandoned/ neglected property.
21. If you are part of a faith community, learn how churches/ houses of worship have created affordable housing from their underutilized space or land.
22. If you are a developer, learn about funding options to build affordable housing and work with others to build units ranging from income-based apartments to starter homes.
23. If you are a concerned citizen, dream big and collaborate with others across the business, nonprofit, and government sectors to find ways to finance and build the housing we desperately need.
The work of Love Columbia would not be possible without the generous financial support from individuals and organizations throughout the community.
Testimonials
Client Stories
