Championing Homeownership: Dee Williams’s Commitment to Expanding Access in Maine 

In Tulare County in the Central San Joaquin valley, above the almond blooms and rows of orange trees, sits the Tule River Reservation. 

Nobody wins when the family feuds.

Let me tell you a story about a house. 

Not just any house — but the big house. The house where my cousins spent summers running barefoot through the yard, where Sunday dinners stretched late into the evening, filled with laughter and the smell of southern cooking and my great-aunt’s White Diamonds perfume. A house full of memories, history and love. 

And then, it became a legal battlefield. 

Ashley Hagen and her husband raise cattle and small crops on a farm they purchased through a “contract for deed" in rural South Dakota. Their land included a small home, where they lived with their three sons. “We kept plastic on the windows and even then, you could feel the breeze,” Hagen says. “The foundation was crumbling.”

The following is a transcript of Episode 5 of The Community Effect Podcast.

Listen here: https://thecommunityeffect-nw.podbean.com/e/episode-5-the-future-now-forecasting-strategies-for-community-building-and-affordable-housing-in-2025-and-beyond-part-1/

As the nation mourns former President Jimmy Carter, who died last month at 100, countless people have shared stories of his impact – among them, people in the housing community and at NeighborWorks America.