Sarah Michelson Saadian is the senior vice president of public policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), ¹ a lobby for the low-income housing industry that advocates for taxpayer-funded residential houses and complexes. ²

Prior to working for NLIHC, Saadian was an analyst for Enterprise Community Partners, ¹ a Community Development Financial Institution is a private organization that can make investments in the residential renting market with steep tax discounts as a means of increasing the supply of housing. ³

In 2021, Saadian co-authored a letter along with the ACLU, Demos, and the National Housing Law Project urging Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge to devise a strategy to enact automatic voter registration for individuals living in housing supported by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. ⁴

Early Life

Sarah Saadian received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia in 2005 and a J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 2009. ⁵

National Low Income Housing Coalition

Voting Laws

Saadian has worked in various positions at the National Low Income Housing Coalition since 2016. She is currently the Vice President of Public Policy, where she has positioned NLIHC as not only a taxpayer funded housing policy advocacy organization, but also an organization that opposes voter integrity laws and supports forced voter registration. ⁴

In 2021, along with left-of-center organizations ACLU, Demos, and the National Housing Law Project, Saadian wrote a letter urging the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to tie funding for housing projects with efforts to weaken voter integrity laws, including making private residential complexes an arm of the state that automatically registers their tenants. ⁴ In defense of the policy, the letter advocated for forced registration, claiming that “[t]he confusing, sometimes onerous, process of registering to vote keeps more people from voting than almost any other barrier. ⁴

COVID-19 Rent Moratorium

In an interview, Saadian advocated for more government spending to extend the COVID-19 moratorium on rent payments. ⁶ Saadian argued that the $25 billion devoted to rental assistance on January 5, 2021 was insufficient, claiming that the NLIHC estimates $70 billion should be set aside for rental assistance to further extend the rent moratorium. ⁶

Advocate for Increased Deficit Spending

Saadian has objected to the Budget Control Act of 2011, a bipartisan bill that introduced spending cap limits on the annual federal appropriations process. ⁷ In the NLIHC 2020 Advocates’ Guide, Saadian urged NLIHC members to ask Congress to not renew the Budget Control Act of 2011, which was set to expire in 2021. ⁸ The spending cap provisions of the Budget Control Act of 2011 were not renewed, and the 2022 fiscal budget was passed without spending caps. ⁹

1. “Sarah Saadian” LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-saadian-495933b
2. “About Us” National Low Income Housing Coalition. https://nlihc.org/about
3. “About” Enterprise Community Partners. https://www.enterprisecommunity.org/about[
4. “Letter to Secretary Marsha L. Fudge” National Low Income Housing Coalition. September 21, 2021. https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Letter_HUD-Voter-Registration_09212021.pdf
5. “Staff” National Low Income Housing Coalition. https://nlihc.org/about/staff
6. Brey, Jared. “What Do Housing Advocates Expect from the Biden Administration?” January 19, 2021. https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/what-do-housing-advocates-expect-from-the-biden-administration
7. “ Advocates Guide 2020” National Low Income Housing Coalition. https://power2u.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2020_Advocates-Guide.pdf
8. “Advocates Guide 2020” National Low Income Housing Coalition. https://power2u.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2020_Advocates-Guide.pdf
9. “House issues $1.5 trillion Fiscal 2022 omnibus spending bill, including $65.7 billion in gross appropriations for HUD, $295 million for CDFI funds” WestVirginia News. March 9, 2022. Accessed March 11, 2022. https://darik.news/westvirginia/house-issues-1-5-trillion-fiscal-2022-omnibus-spending-bill-including-65-7-billion-in-gross-appropriations-for-hud-295-million-for-cdfi-funds/202203515757.html