LISC CEO Michael T. Pugh joined David Dworkin, CEO of the National Housing Conference (NHC), the nation’s oldest and broadest affordable housing coalition, on NHC’s podcast “Beyond Four Walls: Conversations on Affordable Housing.” The wide-ranging and energetic conversation between these two Detroit natives spans topics ranging from Pugh’s history in the workforce and housing spheres to innovative new projects in Detroit, Dallas and Charlotte, to the imperative work of supporting generational wealth and homeownership for people who have been sidelined from America’s prosperity. This is a must-listen! The podcast episode below was originally published on: A Conversation with Michael Pugh, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) By The National Housing Conference

Nadia Villagrán, Rural LISC’s new leader, brings a lifetime of rural experience, and a career’s worth of know-how in rural development, to the job (not to mention eight years in various roles on the team she now leads). In the following Q+A, she shares her vision for the work, her insights into the special challenges for rural, and the reasons her childhood in the Arizona countryside still guide her approach to making impact.

In an op-ed for “Smart Cities Dive”, LISC CEO Michael T. Pugh, and Enterprise Community Partners CEO Shaun Donovan, weigh in on how climate and community develop are fundamentally part of the same whole—the premise of a new book, “What’s Possible: Investing NOW for Prosperous, Sustainable Neighborhoods”, just co-published by their two organizations with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And for investments in green community development to be successful, they argue, the work must be guided by strategies that prioritize community input and involvement.

The new SCOTUS ruling, rather than recognize the roots of homelessness and the resources needed to combat it, punishes those who are most vulnerable and ultimately undercuts the health of our communities and economy.

Jeanne Cola, Senior Executive Director, LISC Rhode Island

In a sharp editorial for the Boston Globe, LISC Rhode Island senior executive director Jeanne Cola celebrates a $120M housing bond that will go before voters this fall, but warns that the figure is not nearly enough to close the state’s enormous affordability gap. Citing a range of creative solutions, Cola argues that only an all-hands-on-deck approach, with corporate citizens, non-profits and all levels of government collaborating, can make good housing for all a reality.

By Madeline del Carmen Fraser Cook, Senior Vice President, Community Building and Resilient Solutions

In her chapter from What’s Possible: Investing NOW for Prosperous, Sustainable Neighborhoods, LISC’s Madeline del Carmen Fraser Cook, who also co-edited the book, explores the imperative of authentic community engagement in the work of supporting historically underinvested places to become more energy efficient and climate resilient. It’s a process that demands insight, bona fide listening and what she describes as “working at the speed of trust.”