Chapter Feature: NAHREP Lake County meets with U.S. Congressman Schneider on housing

We genuinely want to build relationships with local and federal officials. It has been one of our goals from the beginning. Being a newer chapter, our focus was to set a foundation and start to build those relationships over time. Collaboration and team effort have allowed us to have the success we managed so far.

Remember, we are our congressman’s constituents, and having an open, honest and respectful dialogue with our elected officials is critical for getting our policy priorities heard and eventually addressed. Like any business, follow through is essential for success. With elected officials, especially during an election year, you have to be ready to pivot and adjust due to their busy schedules.

Our event was titled, “Inspire with Special Guest Congressman Brad Schneider”. We all learned, laughed, and even cried a bit. The event featured a business development coach to teach us how to better interact with others, two local real estate agents shared their cancer survival story, and a female pilot, author, and entrepreneur shared her inspirational story. The event ended with a Q&A with Congressman Schneider. Our packed house enjoyed all of our speakers and Congressman Schneider added a lot of value with his thoughts and views around our three pillars.

The Congressman agreed that housing supply is a major issue, one that has yet to be fully addressed at the Federal level. One way he suggested the Federal Government can tackle the housing inventory crisis is a focus on materials. In particular, we need to move toward more sustainable materials and reduce our dependency on lumber and other traditional building supplies. The Federal Government could step in to create programs and incentivize companies to create these new materials, reducing the cost to developers and ultimately making it more affordable to build homes.

Congressman Schneider has long been an advocate for immigration as it is the pillar our country was formed on. In particular, he believes the DREAM Act is an essential part of any comprehensive immigration solutions. Unfortunately, this has become an issue where politics are played and the problem continues to get kicked down the road. The Congressman has committed to continuing to fight for passing comprehensive immigration reform, allowing hard working people to pursue higher education, buy homes, start businesses, and expand our economy. This will strengthen our communities and our nation. As a chapter, our takeaway is that we should continue focusing on the economics of immigration, so that could be the foundation of future conversations.

The Inflation Reduction Act has several benefits but energy was the biggest area of focus for the Congressman. Only time will tell, but the Inflation Reduction Act was designed to help lower energy prices, strengthen global supply chains, get more people back to work, suspend and reduce tariffs and other trade barriers, increase affordable housing, lower the price of food, and reduce out-of-pocket costs for Americans.

We are excited for the future leaders of Lake County to continue building the foundational relationships it has established.  We are small in numbers but strong with passion for our mission. With the NAHREP 10 Principles and three policy priorities as its north star, we will continue to work on making a difference and we will continue to bring in government officials to help keep our finger on the pulse so we can make effective, meaningful change.