Black homeownership rates continue to lag behind those of the white community. This is a gap that the affordable housing and community development fields have strived to close for generations. And the issue hasn't gotten better over time. In fact, communities of color are consistently among the hardest hit during economic downturns. 

Isileli Tausinga says people often wonder: Why leave a beautiful island to come to the desert in Utah? His answer? Education, religion and opportunity.

Chief executive officers from three major community development intermediaries, including NeighborWorks America, talked about renewed commitments to racial equity, new partnerships and allocating resources in the time of a pandemic as part of a virtual panel hosted by NeighborWorks. The CEOs, all people of color and together for the first time in a forum like this, shared their thoughts on the state of community development in front of 70 executives from NeighborWorks network organizations based in the Northeast.

As communities struggle to find balance and recover from the impacts of COVID19, high unemployment and social injustice, NeighborWorks organizations are working to balance the need for change and support equality while also keeping residents united and safe. 

Kelleigh Gamble, CEO for Neighborhood Housing Services Birmingham Inc., talks about recent days, and his expectations and hopes for the weeks ahead.

As communities struggle to find balance and recover from the impacts of COVID-19, high unemployment and social injustice, NeighborWorks organizations are working to balance the need for change and supporting equality while also keeping residents united and safe. 

Neighborhood. Porch. Living room. That's where James Clark, head of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area De-escalation Center, says we must go to talk about gun violence within communities. And that's where his outreach workers have been going for the past two and a half years. 

The black community is facing an internal crisis, Clark says. "African-Americans have to look at the fact that African-Americans kill African-Americans every day in every major city. We can't ignore that. Not to address it is passing it on to future generations." 

(With support from Bridget Jackson, Senior Public Affairs & Communications Advisor, Western Region)

It’s obvious to me that if [people with disabilities] are not in the room, we are not included in the discussion at all as a community of people. This is how I ended up effectively homeless for four months,” Melissa Mitchell, disability ambassador