With elections nearly a month behind us, advocates are honing strategies to approach leaders and legislatures, new and old. With so much focus on federal budget and policy, it’s easy to overlook that all but half a dozen state legislatures will be in session by the time President Obama is inaugurated for a second term. At that time, state legislators will already be addressing budgetary issues and health care reform, two factors that will play huge roles in homelessness assistance next year.

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Two weeks or so out from the excitement of the election, it may seem that not much has changed in the grand scheme of things. Not so! Due to redistricting, retirement, resignation, and competitive races, there will be many new faces around Capitol Hill this January. Already last Tuesday, eighty or so members of the freshman class of the 113th Congress arrived on Capitol Hill for their New Member Orientation.

With all those new Members and with committee selections to be finalized around February, we can expect a lot of new people will be occupying significant decision-making positions.

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President Obama won the election; the Republican Party maintained its majority in the House of Representatives; and the Democrats kept their majority in the Senate. It may look as though little has changed, but looks can be deceiving. Elections always mean change.

In Congress, both the House and Senate have a host of new members, while some long-term incumbents (and some new ones) have retired, resigned, or otherwise moved positions, paving the way for congressional committee reassignments and possible leadership changes. Many districts have been redrawn thanks to the decennial redistricting resulting from the Census, and that has left many constituents with new Representatives.

While the resident of the White House isn’t going anywhere, the 15 Executive Cabinet Members can (and often do) go elsewhere between terms. The same is true for a host of lower-level positions. No announcements on that front, so far, though.

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Today’s guest blog post was contributed by Hannah Gisness, a student at George Washington University, and Michael Stoops, Director of Community Organizing for the National Coalition for the Homeless.

October is here with elections just around the corner! Last week I had the opportunity to participate in National Homeless and Low-Income Voter Registration Week. I worked alongside students from The George Washington University and advocates for The National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH). We successfully registered 137 individuals to vote.

For three days, we manned a table at the Martin Luther King Library in D.C and visited local parks to encourage and assist people in the voting and registration process. We were equipped with NCH’s 2012 Voting Manual, paper applications, pens, stickers, pamphlets from the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, and registration and voting materials.

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“You don’t need a home to vote, ” as the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) reminds us on the cover of its 2012 Voting Rights Manual. The NCH and its national partners are wrapping up National Homeless and Low-Income Voter Registration Week, which runs from September 30 to October 6. Voter registration deadlines for the upcoming November elections in the majority of states are fast approaching, but registration will be open in more than a dozen states for at least another week. You can find out the registration deadline in your state from the NCH manual, or look for this information on the website of your state elections office.  The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has a list of state links for state-specific information and registration tools.

The NCH manual offers general tips about registering homeless voters. If there is still time to help homeless citizens register in your state, here are some key points you should keep in mind.

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