Envision Houston: The State of Houston Communities

In June 2023, LISC Houston initiated a six-month learning journey to enhance our community development efforts and better address the evolving needs of the communities we serve. Despite our progress, neighborhood poverty persists due to four major barriers and the inadequacy of our fragmented systems to address them. This necessitates a reassessment of our role in ecosystem development, capacity enhancement, advisory capabilities, and investment strategies. As part of our six-month learning journey, we hosted four regional multidisciplinary and systems-level stakeholder conversations to inform how we can improve our work to meet the unique needs of our communities. Feedback from these surveys and focus groups will guide our decision-making, helping us determine necessary resources and how LISC Houston can be a more effective partner, ally, advocate, and convener.

Our objective was to understand existing community needs, key leaders, ongoing initiatives, and areas where LISC could offer optimal support. We started with a comprehensive survey distributed among our closest allies and stakeholders in June, followed by virtual focus group discussions in August. In November, we held broader regional discussions with multidisciplinary stakeholders to assess the state of our neighborhoods. This journey culminated in a full-day conference in January 2024, where we presented our findings to the Greater Houston region.

We would like to thank all our partners, funders, community residents and stakeholders who participated in our learning journey to enhance our community development efforts and cater more effectively to the dynamic needs of the communities we serve. This work cannot be done without you.

Read our report which highlights our findings here!

Check out the PowerPoint from the event!

Meet Our Keynote Speaker!

Dr. Ruth J. Simmons

Ruth J. Simmons is a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Rice University and Adviser to the President of Harvard University on HBCU Initiatives.  She served as President of Prairie View A&M University until March 2023. Prior to joining Prairie View, she was President of Brown University from 2001-2012 and President of Smith College from 1995-2001. Under her leadership, Prairie View was reclassified as an R-2 Research University and Brown made significant strides in improving its standing as one of the world’s finest research universities.

A French professor before entering university administration, President Simmons held an appointment as a Professor of Comparative Literature and Africana Studies at Brown. After completing her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard, she served in various faculty and administrative roles at the University of Southern California, Princeton University, and Spelman College before becoming president of Smith College, the largest women’s college in the United States. At Smith, she launched a number of important academic initiatives, including an engineering program, the first at an American women’s college.

Simmons is the recipient of many honors, including a Fulbright Fellowship to France, the 2001 President’s Award from the United Negro College Fund, the 2002 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, the 2004 Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal, the Foreign Policy Association Medal, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the Centennial Medal from Harvard University. She has received over forty honorary degrees from universities around the world, including Oxford University, Ewha Women’s University in South Korea, and The American College in Greece. Simmons is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the boards of The MacArthur Foundation, Morehouse College, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Holdsworth Center, and Hines Global Income Trust. She received the Brown faculty’s highest honor: the Susan Colver Rosenberger Medal in 2011 and was honored by the Prairie View faculty in 2022. In 2012, she was named a ‘Chevalier’ of the French Legion of Honor.

Meet Our Other Speakers!

Michael T. Pugh, Chief Executive Officer

Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)

Michael T. Pugh became CEO of LISC in October 2023. Michael has more than 30 years of experience in banking, with a particular focus on expanding access to capital for underserved families, businesses, and communities. He spent more than a decade at the Harlem-based Carver, leading the nation’s largest publicly traded African American-operated bank, with more than $720 million in assets. Earlier in his career, Michael was a senior vice president at Capital One, N.A., where he oversaw 75 banking centers and $3 billion in deposits in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Delaware. Prior to that, he was a senior vice president at Citizens Financial Group, leading retail banking in Michigan and Indiana and overseeing 67 banking centers. A native of Detroit, Michael graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree in health care administration. He first became interested in community finance and helping connect people with access to capital while working as a bank teller to support himself in college. In recent years, Michael has volunteered his time on boards and in organizational leadership positions, including with The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce, The New York Bankers Association, The Economic Club of New York, the Community Development Bankers Association, and the Society for Financial Education & Professional Development.

Donald Bowers, Vice-President

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Houston Branch

Donald Bowers is Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. In this role, Donald oversees the Dallas Fed’s Industry Outreach program. He also serves as secretary to the Houston Branch Board of Directors and leads the Community Engagement and Business Continuity functions at the Houston Branch. As a native Houstonian, Donald demonstrates a sincere interest in his community and in education. He currently serves on the board of the American Leadership Forum, Children at Risk, the Houston Area Urban League, and he is a trustee at Rice University. Donald and his wife, Shawn, are the proud parents of two outstanding young men. One is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, and is a Lieutenant in the United States Navy. The other is a graduate of Texas State University and is a special education instructor and coach in Pearland ISD. Donald received his bachelors’ degree from Rice University and M.B.A. from Sam Houston State University with a concentration in Banking and Finance.

Jesse Thompson, Senior Business Economist

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Houston Branch

Jesse Thompson serves as senior business economist at the Houston Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Thompson, who joined the Bank in 2010, performs research and analysis on issues affecting the Houston and Gulf Coast economy. In particular, he studies issues surrounding area hydrocarbon industries. He also collects information for the Dallas Fed’s Beige Book summary of current economic conditions. He is author of the monthly Energy Indicators, the Houston Economic Indicators, and contributes to the quarterly publication Southwest Economy. Thompson earned an MA in economics, with emphasis on empirical microeconomics, and BA in philosophy and economics from the University of Houston.