“Housing is a spectrum,” says Mel Willie, senior director of Native American Partnerships and Strategy at NeighborWorks® America. “And we want to reach people on all parts of that spectrum.”

NeighborWorks® America convened a Housing Supply Solutions Lab last week to provide affordable housing and community development practitioners in the network a chance to dig deeply into innovative building techniques, zoning and land-use reform, and attainability and affordability. The lab format allowed the participants a chance not just to listen, but to speak, learn and solve challenges together. They left the eight-hour session with new connections and new ideas. 

NeighborWorks® America honored the legacy of three Midwest network organizations Monday night during a reception that capped off the first full day of the NeighborWorks Training Institute. The organizations, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, Hispanic Housing Development Corp., and South Bend Heritage, were celebrating 50 years of impact in the greater Chicago area.

From all across the country, affordable housing and community development practitioners convened at the NeighborWorks® Training Institute (NTI) in Chicago, Illinois, this week to learn, to grow and to help build solutions to an affordable housing crisis that continues to put homes, both rented and owned, out of reach. The training institute attracted well over 1,000 participants, though some were slowed by an East Coast snowstorm that landed just as the institute began. 

In February at NeighborWorks® America, the focus has  been on capacity building. It’s not just because this month features the organization’s premier NeighborWorks Training Institute, held from Feb. 23-27 in Chicago, Illinois. 

A treasured historic landmark in Houston has been restored, thanks to Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation (CRC). The NeighborWorks® network member organization, with its partner Cloudbreak Communities, recently transformed the former St. Elizabeth Hospital in Houston from a vacant shell to a flourishing apartment community named St. Elizabeth Place.

NeighborWorks® network organizations will have a chance to meet with industry partners, engage with one another, and address housing challenges together during a brand new Housing Supply Solutions Lab. The lab will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 25, during the  NeighborWorks® Training Institute in Chicago, Illinois. 

Any time of year that staff at Housing Partnership of New Jersey can get a client into a new home is the best time of year, says Stephanie Otaegui, program director for the housing counseling department. And during a season when people talk about hope is a good time to talk about their work.

NeighborWorks America’s podcast, The Community Effect, dropped this week with a focus on technology and housing innovations. Ernest Coney Jr., CEO of CDC of Tampa and Nick Mitchell-Bennet, executive director of come dream, come build, join NeighborWorks President & CEO Marietta Rodriguez to take a deep dive into the issue. The podcast can be found here, and the transcript is below.