Housing Reform Organizing Fellow

Help Build the Political Will to Solve Northern Virginia’s Housing Crisis

Housing costs are crushing families across Northern Virginia and much of the country. Skyrocketing rents and home prices are driving displacement, long commutes, economic insecurity, and growing instability for working people, young adults, seniors, immigrants, and middle-class families alike.

At the same time, decades of policy decisions have made it extraordinarily difficult, expensive, and slow to build homes of all kinds—including affordable housing. The result is a status quo that is failing our communities.

VOICE (Virginians Organized for Interfaith & Community Engagement) is seeking an entrepreneurial, highly relational Housing Reform Organizing Fellow to help build the local leadership and political momentum necessary to advance meaningful housing reform in Fairfax and Prince William Counties.

This position is ideal for someone passionate about housing, community organizing, coalition-building, and helping ordinary people work together to solve big public problems.

This fellowship includes significant mentoring and coaching from experienced organizers, formal training, and extensive on-the-job learning in community organizing, leadership development, political strategy, and public policy analysis.

About VOICE

VOICE is a nonpartisan network of more than 50 dues-paying faith communities, labor unions, and civic organizations across Northern Virginia. We bring people together across the lines that often divide us to build durable, long-term power and tackle some of our community’s toughest challenges.

For nearly two decades, VOICE has organized tens of thousands of everyday people to win major public investments and policy reforms in housing, behavioral health, education, criminal justice reform, and more.

In recent years, VOICE has become a leading force for housing reform in Virginia. Working alongside faith institutions, housing advocates, residents, labor allies, and business partners, VOICE helped advance landmark statewide reforms through the Commonwealth Housing Coalition—including reforms to faith-based housing, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), parking requirements, and modular housing.

Building on these victories, VOICE is now focused on helping communities organize for local housing reforms that make it easier to build more abundant, affordable, and inclusive housing.

About the Role

The Housing Reform Organizing Fellow will help organize people and institutions to support county-level housing reforms.

This is not a traditional coalition-management position or a role stepping into a fully built campaign. VOICE brings strong relationships, credibility, and a proven track record—but this role is fundamentally about building something new: developing teams of volunteer leaders, strengthening local alliances, identifying new supporters, and helping create durable organizing capacity around housing.

At the outset, the work will focus heavily on building teams of volunteer leaders around housing reform both within VOICE member institutions—primarily faith congregations—and across the broader community.

While some meetings occur virtually, most organizing happens face-to-face. Candidates should expect substantial in-person relationship-building, meetings, public actions, and local travel across Fairfax and Prince William Counties.

What You’ll Do

Build Local Leadership

• Recruit, train, and develop volunteer leaders interested in advancing housing reform.
• Conduct one-to-one relational meetings with residents, clergy, workers, renters, homeowners, parents, and community stakeholders.
• Build teams capable of organizing campaigns and influencing county housing policy.

Build Alliances & Community Support

• Develop relationships with faith communities, labor organizations, civic groups, housing advocates, business leaders, and others where interests align.
• Strengthen connections between VOICE institutions and the broader pro-housing ecosystem.
• Help create new organizing formations where meaningful civic infrastructure does not yet exist.

Support Housing Reform Campaigns

• Help advance campaigns focused on zoning reform, land use, housing production, affordable housing investment, and related local policies.
• Mobilize leaders and allies for effective public action, including testimony, public hearings, candidate forums, and meetings with decision-makers.
• Identify and support people from diverse backgrounds to publicly share how the housing crisis affects their lives.

Research, Strategy & Political Analysis

• Research local housing policy, land use, zoning, and political dynamics.
• Help develop power analyses of institutions, stakeholders, and decision-makers.
• Produce trainings, issue briefings, and educational materials that make complex housing issues accessible and actionable.

Who You Are

You are deeply relational, highly organized, politically curious, and excited by the challenge of helping people build collective power.

You enjoy bringing people and institutions together that might not otherwise collaborate and are energized by building unlikely alliances around shared interests.

You are comfortable with ambiguity, excited by the challenge of building something that does not yet fully exist, and motivated by helping communities solve difficult public problems together.

You are someone who:

• Loves meeting new people and building authentic relationships.
• Is not scared to pick up the phone, or spend much of your day talking to others.
• Is entrepreneurial and proactive.
• Can balance big-picture strategy with strong execution and follow-through.
• Enjoys tackling hard problems.
• Believes durable civic power is necessary to solve the housing crisis.

Required Qualifications

• At least 2+ years of professional community organizing experience, or 3+ years of professional or volunteer organizing experience.
• 3+ years of coalition experience, either managing coalitions or participating in collaborative organizing efforts.
• Strong understanding of local political systems and experience engaging public institutions.
• Excellent research, analytical, and political thinking skills.
• Strong writing and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex issues clearly and accessibly.
• Exceptional personal organization, follow-through, and project management.
• Demonstrated ability to build authentic relationships across lines of race, class, faith, ideology, age, and lived experience.
• Valid driver’s license and reliable daily access to a car.

Strongly Preferred (But Not Required)

• Familiarity with zoning, land use, housing policy, or local development processes.
• Experience with county or municipal politics.
• Fluency in Spanish, Arabic, or Amharic.

Location & Schedule

This is a full-time (40 hours/week), in-person position focused primarily in Fairfax and Prince William Counties, Virginia. Evening and occasional weekend work should be expected.

To Apply

Please submit:

• A resume
• A brief cover letter describing your interest in housing and community organizing, and why you would be a strong candidate for this role
• Contact information for three references, including your relationship to them.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

100% employer-paid health insurance

Fluency in Spanish, Arabic, or Amharic strongly preferred.