Western Regional Advocacy Project

WRAP was created to expose and eliminate the root causes of civil and human rights abuses of people experiencing extreme poverty and homelessness in our communities.
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Funding for housing programs administered by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been cut by tens of billions of dollars since 1983. Less access to affordable housing has resulted in more people living on the streets and their numbers continue to increase.  With no federal planning to restore the funding cuts, many local governments are enacting “quality of life” laws which seek to remove homeless people from public sight. Hundreds of municipal laws across the country criminalize sleeping, sitting, and even food sharing in public spaces. Homeless people are considered unsightly and bad for business.

Reducing access to affordable housing and criminalizing poverty has done nothing to help homeless people or our communities. We believe that major systemic change is necessary to end homelessness: Federal cuts to affordable housing need to be restored; misguided housing legislation needs to be defeated; and discriminatory “quality of life” laws need to be overturned.

The Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) was founded in 2005 by local social justice organizations across the West to bring about these systemic changes.  We are building a multi-issue, multi-racial and social justice-based coalition which brings people together across the local–national divide, thus giving us the strength and experience to make ending homelessness a national priority.