AKRF  •  Conifer Realty, LLC  •  Empire State Bank  •  Keane & Beane  •  Montreign Entertainment  •  Walden Savings Bank  •  WMC Health

Mike Kingsella is Executive Director of Up For Growth, a national non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for working families and creating communities that are accessible and affordable for all by promoting more housing closer to jobs, efficient transportation, and desirable local amenities. Mr. Kingsella provides the opening keynote with a national, state, and regional perspective on how all of the housing markets have been impacted by the pandemic and offer potential policy solutions.

Mike Kingsella
Executive Director | Up for Growth
 

Mike Kingsella is the Executive Director of Up for Growth, is a 501(c)(3) pro-housing policy and research member network that forges policies and partnerships across sectors to achieve housing equity, eliminate systemic barriers, and create more homes.

The organization’s policy work has resulted in the passage of Oregon’s landmark H.B. 2001, which eliminated exclusionary zoning statewide, and through its affiliated legislative advocacy campaign, Up for Growth Action, has led a series of federal pro-housing bills including H.R. 4351, the Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) Act (2019), H.R. 2483, the Build More Housing Near Transit Act of 2021, and S. 902 and H.R. 2126, the Housing Supply and Affordability Act.

Prior to founding Up for Growth, Mike founded and served as Executive Director of Oregon Smart Growth, the first statewide affiliate of Smart Growth America’s LOCUS coalition of responsible developers and investors. Oregon Smart Growth represents more than 40 developers, investors, and development industry firms that support state and local policy enabling and promoting development of dense, walkable, sustainable neighborhoods.

He has a Bachelor of Science in Community Development and Real Estate Development from the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, and has worked in housing since 2003.

Karen Black, CEO of May8 Consulting, will explore solutions on preserving the housing stock and the characteristics of our communities and neighborhoods. She is very familiar with the Hudson Valley region and brings decades of experience to the conversation. Ms. Black has worked in many communities across the country with housing challenges similar to what we face here. Ms. Black brings a unique approach to improving housing through understanding the fabric of the communities and designing new opportunities to work with existing assets.

Karen Black
CEO |  May 8 Consulting, Inc.

Karen L. Black is the CEO of May 8 Consulting and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania in the Urban Studies Department. Black is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Drexel University Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation. In addition, Black is the co-founder of the Healthy Rowhouse Project, an initiative to improve access to private capital for preservation of privately owned affordable housing that has leveraged over $100 million in public and private capital. Black is the author of award-winning publications discussing strategies to revitalize communities, preserve and create affordable housing and attract private investment. Black taught a course on public policy responses to gentrification at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 2015. Prior to beginning her consulting practice, Black was the founding director of the Metropolitan Philadelphia Policy Center, a region-wide policy center founded to research issues impacting the economy, environment and equity within the Philadelphia metropolitan region. Prior to that, Black spent 12 years as a practicing civil rights attorney. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Williams College and a Doctorate of Law from the University of California at Los Angeles.

The Solutions Lounge is where we set the stage and move these conversations toward actionable steps – we look to find the answer to the question:  “So…what are we going to do about it?”

Kristin Siglin, Vice President of Policy and Partnerships with the National Community Stabilization Trust (NCST) opens up day two of the Housing Forum. Ms. Siglin leads NCST’s policy advocacy to help communities address blight, and high rates of vacant, abandoned, and distressed properties. She also works to foster sustainable homeownership to build assets for individuals and neighborhoods. Ms. Siglin will provide a presentation on the proposed Neighborhood Homes Investment Act, which is designed to revitalize distressed suburban and rural neighborhoods with federal tax credits and mobilize private investment to build and rehabilitate half a million homes over the next 10 years. Ms. Siglin will also provide an overview of the proposed federal bills to improve our housing inventory.

Kristin Siglin
Vice President, Policy and Partnerships | National Community Stabilization Trust

Kristin Siglin is currently Vice President of Policy and Partnerships at the National Community Stabilization Trust, responsible for NCST’s advocacy that advances policies to help communities address blight and high rates of vacant, abandoned and distressed properties. Kristin works with NCST’s sponsors, local partners, and other allies to support policy change that uses the lessons of NCST’s work in communities. Kristin also directs the Homeownership Alliance, an advocacy network for nonprofits that foster sustainable homeownership to build assets for individuals and neighborhoods.

Before coming to NCST, Kristin was Senior Vice President, Policy at Housing Partnership Network, a business collaborative of nearly 100 high-performing nonprofits that finance, develop and manage affordable housing and community development projects. Prior to that, Kristin had various roles at Enterprise Community Partners, a community development intermediary and syndicator of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. She managed a special project that commissioned and disseminated original research on school-centered community revitalization.

In 2001-2003 Kristin was the Policy Director of the Millennial Housing Commission, a 22-member bipartisan commission charged by Congress with examining the nation’s housing policy and making recommendations to improve the affordable housing delivery system.

Kristin worked on Capitol Hill for ten years, including a stint as the Minority Staff Director, Subcommittee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. She also served on the personal staff of Senator Christopher S. Bond (R-MO) and Representative Jim Leach (R-IA.)

She has an AB in History, Magna Cum Laude, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

Michael Anderson from the Sightline Institute out of Portland , Oregon, will discuss how to revise single family zoning to help meet our housing challenges through small incremental development. Mr. Anderson will speak to messaging campaigns, public outreach, and coalition building on “Re-legalizing the Missing Middle Housing.”

Brenda Torpy from the Champlain Housing Trust and Brian Pine, Director of the City Community and Economic Development Office in Burlington, Vermont. Ms. Torpy and Mr. Pine will explore successful models used by Community Land Trusts to increase housing inventory and preserve affordability of single family and rental housing.

Michael Anderson
Senior Researcher | Sightline Institute

Michael Andersen is a senior researcher for Sightline Institute, the Pacific Northwest’s sustainability think tank. He worked closely on the messaging behind zoning reforms at the state and city levels that re-legalized duplexes and other ‘missing middle’ housing on all urban residential lots in Oregon. He previously covered housing and transportation for 10 years as a journalist in Oregon and Washington.

Brenda Torpy
Lead Consultant, TA\CHT | Champlain Housing Trust

With 40 years experience in the field, including rural community development work, directing the city of Burlington’s housing programs and leading the Vermont Housing Finance Agency’s program and policy development, Brenda Torpy has advanced the community land trust model at the local, national and international levels. She established and has led CHT, the largest CLT in the nation which has originated many of the legal, financial and programmatic elements widely used by the sector today. She advanced the model nationally as an active founding member and board chair of the National CLT Network, board member of its successor, Grounded Solutions Network and since 2005, has helped to export the model to England, Canada, Belgium and France through direct TA and trainings. Under her leadership CHT received the 2008 UN World Habitat Award.

Brenda was a Ford Foundation Leader for a Changing World in 2002. She is on the Board of Grounded Solutions Network, the Board of the Center for CLT Innovation and past member of the Boston Home Loan and Federal Reserve Banks’ advisory committees, and the Vermont Governor’s Housing Council.

Brian Pine
Director  |  City Community and Economic Development Office, Burlington, Vermont

Brian Pine launched a community development consultancy in 2019 and was appointed by Mayor Miro Weinberger in 2021 to serve as the Director of the City’s Community & Economic Development Office.  He has over 30 years of experience in all aspects of low-income housing development, finance and policy. Pine has served in the nonprofit and public sectors as an elected official, program manager and policy advisor.  Prior to his consultancy, he served on the consulting team at VEIC, where he focused on innovative financing for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects with underserved market segments. Previously, Pine served for 17 years as the City of Burlington Assistant Director for Housing & Neighborhood Revitalization. A seventh-generation native of New Paltz, he has lived in Burlington, VT since entering the University of VT in 1981.

The Solutions Lounge is where we set the stage and move these conversations toward actionable steps – we look to find the answer to the question:  “So…what are we going to do about it?”

Baaba Halm, Vice President and Market Leader, New York, Enterprise Community Partners, leads a 50-person cross-functional team delivering program, capital and policy solutions to address New York’s most complex housing challenges. Ms. Halm will deliver a presentation on capital, policy and programmatic solutions for the development of multifamily housing.

Baaba Halm
Vice President and Market Leader  |  New York, Enterprise Community Partners

Baaba Halm is the New York market leader for Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit on a mission to make home and community places of pride, power and belonging, and platforms for resilience and upward mobility for all.

Baaba leads a 50-person cross-functional team delivering program, capital and policy solutions to address New York’s most complex housing challenges. Under Baaba’s leadership, the New York market is increasing the housing supply, advancing racial equity, and building resilience and upward mobility through developing and deploying programs that focus on preservation, homelessness, fair housing, justice involved housing, faith-based development, economic mobility, leveraging the affordable housing sector to create career pathways, supporting BIPOC developers, and much more.  Over more than 30 years, Enterprise has invested over $3.9 billion to create or preserve over 73,000 homes in New York.

Baaba has two decades of experience in housing, community development, and policy, and a deep commitment to racial equity. She most recently served as the executive deputy commissioner and chief diversity officer at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). There, she was second in command to the commissioner, overseeing six divisions; divisions included Asset & Property Management and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion/EEO. During her tenure, she crafted the Equitable Ownership Requirement benefiting minority-owned developers and the agency’s first in-kind program to foster the participation of minority vendors across the entire affordable housing portfolio; led HPD’s assessment of equity and inclusion practices to strengthen the recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce; and partnered with Enterprise to create the Pathways to Opportunity Program for minority and women-owned business enterprises and nonprofits to become marketing agents for affordable housing projects.

Over Baaba’s career, she has been deeply involved with housing policy and developed extensive relationships with New York legislators. As assistant commissioner managing the Government Relations and Regulatory Compliance department at HPD, she led legislative strategy and negotiation, working with federal, state, and local elected officials on policies from mandatory inclusionary housing to tenant protections. During her eight years with the New York City Council, she served in various legal and leadership roles, with responsibilities ranging from steering communications strategy to negotiating and drafting legislation. Baaba also brings rich experience from her work in the nonprofit sector at Covenant House New Jersey and Housing Works, where she focused on issues such as homelessness and housing discrimination. Baaba received a bachelor’s degree from Morgan State University and a law degree from Brooklyn Law School.

Sadie McKeown, Executive Vice President and Head of Construction Lending and Initiatives of the Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), will discuss the importance for the development of a diverse portfolio of multifamily housing to improve and stabilize neighborhoods in the Hudson Valley region. Ms. McKeown will focus on the need to provide flexible capital and technical assistance to owners and developers of small buildings, and the importance of public/private partnerships in the creation and preservation of affordable housing.

Sadie McKeown
Executive Vice President and Head of Construction Lending and Initiatives  |  Community Preservation Corporation (CPC)

Sadie McKeown is Executive Vice President and Head of Construction Lending and Initiatives at The Community Preservation Corporation (CPC).  In this capacity she leads the company’s construction lending activities including the operation of its six regional field offices located throughout New York State. Sadie also oversees CPC’s numerous initiatives, which include its innovative sustainability practice, the ACCESS fund to strengthen and support BIPOC developers and real estate entrepreneurs, and CPC’s partnership with New York State in providing COVID relief funding to small multifamily building owners.

Sadie started her career at CPC as a Mortgage Originator in 1992, and later served as Senior Vice President and Director of Lending in CPC’s Hudson Valley Regional Office. During that time, she led the company’s Downtown Main Street initiatives, collaborating with municipalities and community stakeholders to help revitalize cities like Beacon, NY that had been struggling to recover from decades of economic disinvestment. In 2009, Sadie helped create the company’s Green Financing Initiative, the precursor to what would eventually become CPC’s comprehensive sustainability practice.

Throughout her career, Sadie has been a fierce advocate for moving the real estate industry and built environment towards carbon neutrality. Under her guidance, CPC created its innovative “underwriting efficiency” financing method that incorporates the potential savings from energy and water efficiency measures into the financing of first mortgages for multifamily buildings, leading to the financing of more than 8,620 sustainable units since fiscal year 2015.

She has overseen the development of numerous guides, tools, and case studies to help lenders, owners, and developers understand the benefits of energy efficient construction and retrofits; including CPC’s “Underwriting Efficiency Handbook” and its companion guide titled “Financing High-Performance” which focus on guiding lenders and developers through the underwriting efficiency methodology for both retrofit and new construction projects.

Sadie also led CPC’s partnership with New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and private partners on a Passive House study that aimed to demystify the economics and environmental benefits of Passive House. The ongoing study is collecting cost and performance data for passive house projects in the Northeast United States.

Sadie currently sits on the boards of the New York State Housing Finance Agency, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), and New York City Energy Efficiency Corporation (NYCEEC), as well as on the New York State Climate Action Council’s Energy Efficiency and Housing Advisory Panel and the NYSERDA Technical Advisory Group for the Electrification Roadmap. She is a frequent guest on panel discussions related to sustainability in the built environment, as well as multifamily and affordable housing issues. She has contributed editorial content to publications such as Crain’s New York Business and The Business Journals.

Sadie earned her Master’s Degree in Human Services Administration with a concentration in Housing from Cornell University. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from Fordham University.

The Solutions Lounge is where we set the stage and move these conversations toward actionable steps – we look to find the answer to the question:  “So…what are we going to do about it?”

Attend the virtual events LIVE or on-demand at your convenience.