By Laura Jaramillo, Executive Director, LISC Houston

Laura Jaramillo, executive director of LISC Houston, has plenty of personal experience with her hometown’s extreme weather, and the struggles Houstonians, especially those living on low incomes, face as the climate crisis cranks up those weather events. In a personal blog, Jaramillo reflects on how, in all their work, her team and their partners have incorporated a focus on helping people build resiliency—in their financial lives, in their homes, and with their communities—and why it’s imperative we act collaboratively now.

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.

Meet Jasmine Thai, a graduate of LISC Massachusetts’s Bridges to Green Jobs program supported by TD Bank, an experience that helped her secure an entry-level weatherization job with high-income potential in a growing industry. “If I didn't go through this program, I would have never gotten that job,” said Thai.

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.”

Amidst record-high rental rates and limited affordable housing opportunities, some New York City residents are finding hope in the Affordable Neighborhood Co-op Program (ANCP). LISC New York helped the nonprofit Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE) secure $9.6 million in construction financing to renovate three downtown Manhattan buildings and convert them to affordable for-sale housing. Following two years of renovation, existing tenants at East 12th Street are  preparing to purchase shares in their future cooperative building.

By Michael T. Pugh, LISC CEO

LISC president and CEO Michael T. Pugh reflects on what he's learned in his first months helming the organization, and shares top priorities for the year, both internally and for supporting the communities we work with. Green housing, second-chance employment and AI as a tool for more efficient credit-building and lending are at the top of the list, along with strengthening and streamlining LISC's operations to achieve maximum impact in people's lives.