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.”

In an article in GovTech magazine, Madeline Fraser Cook, LISC’s vice president for community building and resilient solutions, discusses how community members must be part of public transit planning, and all facets of community life taken into account. Policy makers and local leaders promoting transit-oriented development should be “very explicit about investment in affordable housing, and calling out that [there has to be] access for everyone. They can’t be displacing people.”

In an opinion piece for Next City, LISC’s Madeline Fraser Cook, together with partners from Enterprise, RMI and the California Housing Partnership, make the case for ramping up investment in green, affordable housing. A commitment to creating sustainable homes, they argue, is imperative to addressing the country's housing crisis and to close income and health gaps as well as slow climate change.