Click here to Register!

Trainers and Presenters

 

Keynote Speakers

Eugene “Gus” Newport is an MLK Fellow at MIT. He also serves as a Senior Consultant at Urban Strategies Council and a Program consultant to both the Vanguard Public Foundation and the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation.  Gus was the first “Fellow” of the Mabel Louise Riley Foundation, and he served as a consultant to East Bay Funders (a foundation partnership).  Gus is the former Executive Director of the Institute of Community Economics and the former General Manager of radio station KPFA in Berkeley, the oldest listener sponsored radio station in the country.

Gus is the former Executive Director of the Partnership for Neighborhood Initiatives (PNI) in Palm Beach County, FL and the former Executive Director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), Boston, MA.

He is the former Mayor of Berkeley, CA (1979-1986).  During his tenure he served on the advisory board of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and chaired the sub-committees on Education and Employment.  He also served as the first Senior Fellow of the William Monroe Trotter Institute, University of Mass. Boston, and as a lecturer in residence at the University of California at Santa Cruz.  Gus served as a member of the faculty at Portland State University to the HUD Senior Managers Seminar, and a member of the Yale Community Fellows program faculty.

Gus has worked in several capacities for federal, state, county and municipal governments, nonprofit agencies and the private sector.  His areas of work are neighborhood planning and development, economic development, youth employment and training, and various financing methods for municipal capital improvements.  He has lectured at numerous colleges and universities and served on several national policy boards and United Nation committees.  He is a member of the Board of Overseers of the Graduate Program in Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University and Chair of the board of the Algebra Project.  Gus served as the Vice-President from the U.S. to the World peace Council 1980-1986.

 

Community Land Trusts

John Barros, a lifelong resident of Boston’s Dudley neighborhood, became Executive Director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) in 2000. He is a member of the Aspen Institute’s Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives and Co-Chairperson of the Center for Community Builders, a national practitioner network.  He was cofounder of DSNI’s Nubian Roots Youth Committee, and designer of the prominent 1993 “Unity through Diversity” mural.  At age 17 he was the first youth elected to the DSNI Board of Directors.  During 1997-98 John was elected Vice President of the DSNI Board.  He also served a term as Vice-President of Dudley Neighbors, Inc. (DNI), the community land trust created to assure long-term affordable housing.

John Emmeus Davis is a partner in Burlington Associates in Community Development LLC, a national consulting cooperative specializing in policies and programs promoting permanently affordable housing.  Davis previously served as Housing Director for Burlington, Vermont.  He has taught housing policy and neighborhood planning at New Hampshire College, the University of Vermont, and MIT.  His publications include The Community Land Trust Handbook (1984), Contested Ground: Collective Action and the Urban Neighborhood (1991), The Affordable City: Toward a Third Sector Housing Policy (1994), Permanently Affordable Homeownership: Does the Community Land Trust Deliver on Its Promises? (2003), and a recently completed study for the National Housing Institute, entitled Shared Equity Homeownership: The Changing Landscape of Resale-Restricted, Owner-Occupied Housing. 

May Louie has been working at Dudley Square Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) as the Rebuilding Communities Initiative (RCI) Project Director since 1994. RCI, an Annie E. Casey Foundation-funded project, is one of the nation’s innovative comprehensive community-building initiatives. It approaches place-based change in an integrated, synergistic way, encouraging broad and new strategies for community revitalization. For a number of years, she chaired the Boston Rainbow Coalition, which built neighborhood and constituency councils throughout the city. Before coming to DSNI, she worked for the National Rainbow Coalition as its Chief of Staff.

Selina Mack is currently the Executive Director of Durham Community Land Trustees (DCLT) in Durham, NC. With over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit/governmental industry, Selina joined DCLT in 1996 as the organization’s Business Manager. After gaining knowledge of the organization and the affordable housing industry, she became the 4th Executive Director of DCLT in 1998.  Selina has provided key leadership of this organization through many ups and downs, but most notably through its expansion of commercial and rental housing development projects.

A graduate of East Carolina University, Selina still considers herself an Accountant by profession. She is also a Certified Public Manager and holds several certifications in Community Economic Development.  She is a member of the Board of Directors of Durham Affordable Housing Coalition, the NC Community Development Initiative, the NC Community Development Initiative Capital and Bull City Neighborhood Builders.

 

Inclusionary Zoning

Alan Mallach is research director of the National Housing Institute in Montclair, New Jersey, whose most recent book, Bringing Buildings Back: Turning Abandoned Properties into Community Assets, was published earlier this year. He has been a consultant, advocate and public official, and has taught at Rutgers University and elsewhere. From 1990 through 1999 he was Director of the Department of Housing & Development for the City of Trenton, New Jersey’s state capital. He is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and is also the author of Inclusionary Housing Programs: Policies and Practices and other works on planning, housing and Italian opera. He holds a B.A. degree from Yale University.

Bibi Hidalgo assisted with creating and leading the Baltimore City Inclusive Housing Coalition (IHC) which resulted in the passage of the first Inclusionary Housing ordinance for Baltimore in June, 2007.  The Coalition consisted of several labor unions and faith-based organizing groups, the NAACP of Baltimore, the Greater Baltimore Urban League, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, ACORN, CASA of Maryland and others. Ms. Hidalgo also co-wrote and co-edited “At Home in Baltimore: A Plan for an Inclusive City of Neighborhoods, which was released in July of 2006 following the city wide Task Force on Inclusionary Housing. Prior to serving as Housing Director for CPHA, Ms. Hidalgo developed and facilitated an organizing process through which Cuban church leaders in Miami could create a safe space to explore options for bridging a 40 year divide between the people of Miami and Cuba. She was invited to present the outcomes of this work to the Bishops Conference and several Dioceses of Cuba in 2004. Bibi received a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University in 2000.

Brian Augusta is a staff attorney and legislative advocate with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, where he focuses on statewide land use and affordable housing policy.  Brian began working on affordable housing issues in 1991, as the director of the Sacramento Housing Alliance, a position he held for four years.  In 1999, after graduating from Santa Clara University School of Law, Brian joined the staff of Legal Services of Northern California, where he worked for six years as a staff attorney.  During his tenure with LSNC, Brian's worked focused on land use and housing element litigation and advocacy.  Among other contributions, Brian’s advocacy helped win adoption of inclusionary housing policies in Folsom, Sacramento County and the City of Sacramento. The most recent effort, a two-year campaign to win passage of the policy in the County of Sacramento, resulted in the only known ordinance to include extremely low income households, those making less than 30% of the median income.   Just prior to working with CRLAF, he served two years as staff to Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D-San Jose), most recently as her Legislative Director.  He currently serves as President of the board of the Sacramento Housing Alliance.

Dennis Keating is Chair and Associate Dean of the Department of Urban Studies at the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.  He received his B.A. from Loyola College (Baltimore), his MCP and Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley and J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.  His teaching and research interests include housing, neighborhood development, urban policy and land use law.  In his latest publication, a co-authored chapter appears in "A Right to Housing" (Temple University Press, 2006).

Nico Calavita is professor in the Graduate Program in City Planning at San Diego State University. Prof. Calavita’s research interests include affordable housing and community development, the politics of growth and comparative planning. His most recent publications on housing issues are a chapter on “Job-Housing Linkage Fees in California” to be included in the forthcoming Solano Press's California Affordable Housing Handbook and "Regulatory Responses to the Housing Crisis: Inclusionary Housing and Job-Housing Linkage Fees" in Practicing Planner; on smart growth and equity, “The Challenges of Smart Growth: The San Diego Case,” a chapter in Revitalizing the City, Fritz Wagner et.al. editors.   He frequently publishes commentaries in the San-Diego Union-Tribune and Los Angeles Times on community development and housing. He was Chair of the City of San Diego Housing Trust Fund Board of Trustees, co-founder of the San Diego Affordable Housing Coalition, and board member of the City Heights Community Development Corporation.

Stuart Katzenberg is Head Organizer of Maryland ACORN, a 6,000 member grassroots community organization of low to moderate income families that works on a range of issues including housing, education, lending, environmental justice, living wages, and community revitalization.  Mr. Katzenberg assisted in leading the Baltimore City Inclusive Housing Coalition which helped pass an inclusive housing ordinance for Baltimore in June 2007.  Prior to leading Maryland ACORN Mr. Katzenberg worked as Head Organizer for Cleveland ACORN, as well as Lead Organizer for Baltimore City ACORN.  Mr. Katzenberg has also directed the Maryland American Home Day Care Workers Association, formerly the largest worker oriented childcare provider organization in the state which has since merged into SEIU local 500.  Mr. Katzenberg is a 2002 graduate of Connecticut College.

 

Community Benefits Agreements

Brad Lander directs the Pratt Center for Community Development, which works for a more just, equitable, and sustainable city for all New Yorkers by empowering communities to plan and realize their futures. During Brad's tenure, the Pratt Center has helped to shape a new inclusionary zoning policy to create affordable housing in NYC, to protect the tenure of public housing residents in Staten Island, and to create a new dialogue and strategies for how growth can be made to work for New York's low and moderate income communities. Brad also teaches affordable housing, real estate development, and community planning at Pratt.

Before coming to Pratt in 2003, Brad served for a decade as executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, a community-based organization in Brooklyn that develops and manages affordable housing; creates economic opportunities through workforce development, job creation, and adult education; and organizes tenants and workers to fight for a better community. Brad's work at Fifth Avenue Committee was recognized with awards from the Ford Foundation, Fannie Mae Foundation, and New York Magazine. He holds a masters in City and Regional Planning from Pratt, a masters in Social Anthropology from the University College London, and a bachelor of arts from the University of Chicago. Brad lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Meg Barnette, and their children, Marek and Rosa.

Laura Wolf-Powers is the Chairperson of Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, overseeing masters degree programs in city and regional planning, environmental planning and historic preservation.  Her research and publications focus on urban labor markets, job-centered economic development, and the politics of urban redevelopment. She works actively with the Pratt Center for Community Development, the New York City Employment and Training Coalition, and other organizations on economic development and land use policy initiatives.  She holds a PhD in urban planning and policy from Rutgers University.

Madeline Janis is the co-founder and executive director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a national leader in the effort to reduce working poverty and rebuild the American middle class. LAANE first gained recognition in 1995 with the passage of  L.A.’s worker retention law, which helped save the jobs of nearly 1,000 LAX workers. In 1997 LAANE led the campaign to pass the city’s living wage law, which quickly became a national model. Under Madeline’s leadership, LAANE pioneered a new approach to economic development, which has led to the adoption of landmark community benefits agreements guaranteeing quality jobs, affordable housing and other protections for low-income communities. Madeline also serves as a volunteer commissioner on the board of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, the country’s largest such agency, and is a Senior Fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs.

Maria Loya is an experienced public policy advocate and activist with a track record of advancing the rights of working families, children and women.  

As Director of Public Policy and Advocacy with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), Ms. Loya has played a leadership role in major public policy initiatives in Los Angeles. She has worked closely with the Los Angeles City Council, as well as a broad range of community activists and labor leaders to effectively advocate for low wage service employees.

Ms. Loya worked to spearhead a groundbreaking effort to create a Community Benefits Agreement for communities affected by the proposed LAX modernization plan. This agreement would create a national precedent, establishing far-reaching environmental safeguards, educational improvements and job protections for thousands of residents.

Ms. Loya is currently working with a coalition of Northeast San Fernando Valley residents, environmental justice and civil rights organizations who are working to win a Community Benefit Agreement tied to a hospital expansion in an area that has a long history of environmental injustice.

Robin Kniech is an attorney and serves as the Program Director for the Front Range Economic Strategy Center in Denver, Colorado.  She coordinates FRESC’s Campaign for Responsible Development (CRD), and works to implement agreements and policies for equity and sustainability in subsidized developments.  Her expertise includes maximizing affordable housing and good jobs at publicly supported redevelopments, local hiring, workforce development in the construction industry, and public policy.