10 Inspiring Women in Affordable Housing

Meet 10 women who have a big presence in the affordable housing world.

They are developers, finance executives, government leaders, and advocates. Several have recently stepped into new roles, and others have been in their jobs for a while. All are pushing the industry forward with their new housing developments or innovative ideas.

While more companies are thinking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, underrepresentation continues. Women make up about 36.7% of the commercial real estate industry, and the percentage has remained about the same over the last 15 years, according to a 2020 study by the Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Network.

At the same time, companies in the top 25% for gender diversity are 15% more likely to have financial returns above their industry medians, reports CREW.

Reflecting on being the first woman to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development in more than 40 years, Marcia L. Fudge notes that a large number of the households the agency assists are led by women.

She also shares the message she would give to herself if she was just starting her career: “Opportunities do present themselves,” she says. “You just have to be available and ready to accept them.”

New to her role this year is Sharon Wilson Géno, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council. Her advice to women in the industry is: “Don’t try to adapt to those things that are not you. Stay true to yourself.”

Catherine Buell

“To date, we have committed to creating and preserving over 12,700 affordable homes, so we are well on target to be able to meet our 20,000-unit goal and get all 20,000 affordable housing units in service at the end of our five-year funding commitment,” she says.

The Housing Equity Fund primarily provides critical gap financing through low-rate loans and grants to developers, public agencies, and minority-led organizations. It’s focusing on projects in Washington’s Puget Sound area, the Arlington, Virginia region, and Nashville, Tennessee.

Amazon’s effort is a big-time example of a corporation investing in affordable housing to make meaningful changes in its hometown communities.

Buell took on her role as director of the fund after holding several other housing and community leadership positions. She launched her career as an attorney representing developers and investors going into real estate funds or directly buying or developing real estate assets. She’s also served as president and CEO of the Atlanta Housing Authority and vice president of policy and programs for the Greater Washington Partnership, a civic alliance of CEOs in the Washington, D.C., region before becoming director of the Housing Equity Fund.

She cites several traits that have helped her most during her career.

“One of the leadership principles at Amazon is ‘learn and be curious,’” she says. “A curiosity about community redevelopment and affordable housing issues has been key. Being curious about what was happening in my community, understanding how to negotiate, attention to detail, and perseverance have all helped.”

Buell serves on the boards of Women of Color in Community Development as well as Community of Hope, a nonprofit providing housing and services to homeless and low-income families in Washington, D.C.

Rep. Suzan DelBene

She’s been the lead sponsor of the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act (AHCIA) in the House of Representatives and plans to reintroduce the bipartisan legislation this year. The AHCIA seeks to bolster the federal program, including increasing the amount of housing credits allocated to each state.

DelBene, whose district includes parts of King and Snohomish counties, was first sworn into the House in 2012.

AHF: As a Congress member, you’re involved in a wide range of issues. How did affordable housing become a key area of focus for you?

DelBene: It’s an issue that I have heard about from folks throughout our region and frankly across the country. There’s nothing more basic for a family than having a stable place to call home. Whether it’s a city or a rural area, I continue to hear concerns that folks are having about housing, availability of housing, affordability of housing, and it’s continued to become more challenging. We know that 30% of all households spend more than 30% of their income on housing. We know that we have over 17 million of those households have been severely cost burdened and spending more than half of their income on housing. When you look at those numbers, it’s just unsustainable for families. There’s got to be more things that we can do. There are things that we need to do at all levels of government. At the federal level, we have a tool that’s been incredibly effective, and we can do more. It became a strong priority of mine to make that difference because we need to make a long-term commitment to address the challenges that we’re facing.

AHF: What are your plans for the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act this year?

DelBene: We’re planning to reintroduce the legislation this Congress. We lost my great Republican partner last Congress—Jackie Walorski. It’s truly a tragedy. She had been the Republican lead on the bill and was always a fierce champion for affordable housing, so now we’re looking for who will be the new Republican lead. Also, we are talking with folks about any changes that we might want to make to the legislation before we reintroduce it. As you know, there’s a narrow majority that Republicans have in the House. We have a divided Congress, but this has been a very bipartisan issue. I think we can continue to build bipartisan support. I look forward to working with colleagues to build that support and obviously working with our partners in the Senate like Sen. [Maria] Cantwell as well.

AHF: The AHCIA has really strong bipartisan support but just hasn’t been able to get approved. Why has it not been passed, and what’s it going to take get it over the finish line?

DelBene: We have made important progress. In December 2020, we established the permanent 4% floor, which was a piece of the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act. We’ve been able to make progress, and we’re going to continue to push. We would love to see a bill go through, but there’s also been opportunities to do pieces. When we did that, we did the 4% floor. We helped close the funding gap for affordable housing projects, and that was estimated to help produce about 130,000 affordable homes across the country. More affordable homes means we create a lot of jobs—in that case, about 170,000 jobs and put $18.5 billion back into the economy. We’re going to continue to make sure we put our legislation to address all the issues that we think are priorities and also to look for opportunities to move pieces of that going forward so we make a difference for our communities.

AHF: What do you think are the most important skills in a leader today?

DelBene: There are a lot of critical components of leadership. One is bringing others into the fold and making sure you can build strong support and that you have other folks who are advocates. Definitely in Congress that’s critical because we don’t pass anything unless we build those strong coalitions. Clearly, listening and knowing your information well is another. Being patient and flexible to adapt as you learn new things. All of those skills are important. The way we continue to move forward on issues, and housing is an example of this, is by really making sure we understand the challenges that our communities are facing, the challenges that families are facing.

AHF: You were just at a ribbon cutting for an affordable housing development. Why it was important to be there?

DelBene: Housing Hope, a nonprofit that has done incredible work on affordable housing, just completed its Twin Lakes Landing II project in Marysville, Washington. It’s a 60-unit project in an area where we have great need for affordable housing. It’s in Snohomish County, just north of Seattle. The project is funded with a combination of local, state, and federal resources, including LIHTCs. It’s great to see those tax credits at work. Clearly, we have a success record, and here’s another example of something that’s happening right now, and we need more. We need more projects like that.

Marcia Fudge

Formerly mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, and a member of Congress for more than a decade, she was tapped to be the nation’s top housing official by President Joe Biden shortly after his election in 2020.

“One of the things that we pride ourselves on at HUD is making clear to the people that we serve that government really can work to their benefit and give them the hope and belief that we can make their lives better,” she tells Affordable Housing Finance. “That is my real goal in this role.”

The agency’s recent efforts have included taking new steps to bolster the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing mandate, which was dismantled by the Trump administration. HUD and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness are also behind the House America initiative, working with local leaders to use American Rescue Plan Act resources to address homelessness.

AHF: You have a long and wide list of issues to cover in your job, but as you go into your third year as HUD secretary, what is priority No. 1?

Fudge: It’s the same as it’s always been: It’s to make sure people in this country have decent, affordable, safe housing. Of course, there are things like the resources we have put into Healthy Homes so we can eradicate lead and mold. You shouldn’t live in a house that makes you sick. We want to be sure that we have people who can grow healthy, especially young people. We want people to live in communities of opportunity, so they can be in a position to get good jobs and to have health care. It’s the same from the beginning. It’s how to make the lives of the people in this country who have been either underserved or overlooked better. That’s our job.

AHF: What’s a policy change that you would like to see get made this year?

Fudge: There are a number of them. I would say, off the top, one of my priorities for this year is to find a way to reunite families who are living in public housing. If someone has a felony record, when they leave prison they cannot live in public housing. But, there are so many people who have felonies for things that are not violent, that are not abusive, that are not crimes against children, and that are not sexual abuses. They’re just people who may have been in a bad situation. If we can reunite families, we can keep the recidivism rate down. We can let children live with their mother and father. We can create an environment where people feel better about themselves. I think in the long run what we want to do is encourage people to do the right things, to work hard, to try to pull their families through difficult times.

AHF: Rising developments costs are a major issue for affordable housing developers. What is HUD or the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) doing to help developers create more housing?

Fudge: We have encouraged housing finance agencies to assist with low-interest loans. We have increased the amount of the Housing Trust Fund. We have made Community Development Block Grants more flexible. We have put more resources into our HOME dollars. We’re doing our part as best we can, but the thing that I think we are doing best is interacting with mayors to say “take a look at your zoning.” The president put in his budget billions of dollars to encourage communities to look at their zoning because we know zoning changes or lack thereof have increased building costs by as much as 40%, somewhere between 30% and 40%. We’re trying to say “take a deep dive and see if you have policies that make it more difficult or policies that encourage people to build.” We’re also providing more vouchers.

AHF: Talk about the racial disparities that exist in homeownership. How can we improve in this area?

Fudge: It’s unconscionable in many ways that the gap between Black and white ownership is as big or bigger than it was in 1968 when we passed the Fair Housing law. I think it’s a black mark on our nation that we would allow the same kind of discrimination that we were fighting in 1968 to continue today. My concern is that we need to address it in a way that says to people not only will we not tolerate it, but that we’re going to make significant change by doing things like working on property valuation. We’re saying that you’re no longer going to communities of color and devalue their properties. You’re not only devaluing their properties, but you’re taking away generational wealth. ...We’ve penalized people who have student loan debt, primarily that’s people of color and poor communities. It’s more difficult if you have student loan debt to get a loan than for people who may have the same exact amount of indebtedness with a credit card. We have decided that we are going to make it a level playing level. We’ve also decided that persons who come to us and were deemed to have no credit or not be creditworthy, we’ve now said if you have a positive rental history we’re going to consider that credit. We’re working on ways to encourage the minority community. We’re calling out things that we know are wrong. Fair Housing is the law of the land, and we intend to enforce it.

AHF: Can you share an update on the House America initiative. Be critical. Where has it met your expectations, and where has it not?

Fudge: Actually, it’s met our expectations everyplace. We have about 100 communities. The goal was for each community to determine how many persons who are either homeless or at risk of being homeless that they can put in stable homes as well as to put a number of houses or units of housing on the market. In one year, we housed more than 100,000 people and put nearly 35,000 affordable housing units on the market. Each city met its goal. They were conservative admittedly, but they were determined to try to address the issue. Homelessness is a crisis in this country, so is the lack of affordable housing. We cannot do it alone. When cities commit to put those resources in place and to put housing units on the market, it makes our job so much easier. I think in one year it was a great success.

AHF: You’re the first woman to lead HUD in decades. Why do you think that’s significant?

Fudge: It’s been 40 years. I think it’s significant for a couple of reasons. One is the fact that when you look at our largest population that we deal with on a regular basis, those for whom we provide rental assistance, we probably affect about 5 million households a month. Many of those households are led by women. When you think about the number of people living on the street, the number of women have been increasing, especially senior women. It’s also important that people hopefully see someone who is possibly more compassionate, more concerned about their well-being, and has some real-life experience as to what it takes to live in communities like the communities we work in every day.

AHF: You’ve been a mayor, a Congress member, and a U.S. secretary, what skills have helped you the most?

Fudge: The first would be just listening to people. So often those of us in government decide early on that we know what’s best for people as opposed to talking to the people we are trying to help. I think that would be No. 1. As you talk about my skills as a mayor, housing was a huge issue as it is today in every single community. People need housing, decent housing, and you also deal with how to get people to and from their homes to their jobs, so transportation and housing, those are things I’ve learned. As a member of Congress, you learn what legislation can really do, how it can change people’s lives. You pull all those things together, and you can see a bigger picture than you can if you’re just in one role. You see a much, much larger landscape of what can and cannot be done.

AHF: What would you tell a younger Marcia Fudge beginning her professional career?

Fudge: I believe that I would say opportunities always come, no matter your station, no matter where you are. Opportunities do present themselves. You just have to be available and ready to accept them. Sometimes we overlook opportunities because we’re not prepared to accept them. I think the better prepared you are gives you a brighter and bigger future. … It’s always about being ready. Preparation and education for me are the things that I would say most.

Dora Leong Gallo

This year marks the 35th anniversary of A Community of Friends (ACOF) and the 20th year that Dora Leong Gallo has been at the helm of the affordable housing organization.

The Los Angeles-based nonprofit has several notable developments under construction this year, including Lorena Plaza, a hard-fought 49-unit community that includes 32 supportive housing units for people experiencing homelessness and with a mental illness. ACOF and Gallo held firm for 14 years as the project was battered by a recession, obstructive neighbors, legal battles, and other major blows.

Like a heavyweight fighter refusing to be knocked out, ACOF finally prevailed, breaking ground on Lorena Plaza in L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood at the end of last year. The housing is being built on land owned by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a critical partner in the development.

During the long journey, project supporters heard a number of derogatory comments about the proposed development and its future residents. That angered Gallo, and it made her and her team even more steadfast in its purpose. The nonprofit makes it very clear that it’s here to end homelessness by providing permanent supportive housing for people with a mental health diagnosis. ACOF is the only developer in Southern California and likely beyond that includes the words “affordable housing” and “mental illness” in its mission statement, notes Gallo, president and CEO.

“If we want to break the stigma of mental illness, we have to own it, and we have to say it,” she says.

Lorena Plaza may help spur other changes. In December, the construction site served as a fitting backdrop for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass when she signed a directive calling on the city to streamline the approval process for affordable housing projects.

ACOF has several other developments under construction, including Ventura Springs, a 120-unit development for homeless and disabled veterans in San Buenaventura, and Oasis Senior Villas, a 95-unit development for older adults and veterans experiencing homelessness and living with a mental illness in Riverside. More housing is in the pipeline.

The organization is present in five Southern California counties and has developed more than 2,000 affordable housing units over the years.

As Gallo enters her 20th year at ACOF, she reflects on how she has changed as a leader.

“Over the years I have come to realize how important it is to not just talk the talk but to walk the walk as a leader,” says the CEO. “Integrity has always been an important personal value, but I now firmly believe it is also important to establishing organizational credibility. Another lesson learned over the years is the importance of developing your employees—to provide not just job skills training but also opportunities to grow as a person and to lead. So many people have gone on from ACOF to lead other nonprofits over the past 35 years. It’s been great for the field. I’m now trying to be more intentional about helping prepare people for those growth opportunities, both internal and external.”

Active beyond ACOF, Gallo is board chair of the National Low Income Housing Coalition and on the board of Enterprise Community Partners.

Chrystal Kornegay

Chrystal Kornegay has been executive director of MassHousing for the past five years. Under her leadership, the organization has launched a new downpayment assistance program, secured more than $180 million to expand a workforce housing initiative, and developed a nationally recognized program for homeownership production in communities of color. During this period, MassHousing has also grown its net assets by 23%.

This year, the organization has plans to start an equitable developers fund to increase the participation of BIPOC developers in creating affordable housing.

Created in 1966, MassHousing is charged with providing financing for affordable housing throughout Massachusetts. Kornegay is the first woman and the first person of color to lead the organization.

Although MassHousing administers some publicly funded programs on behalf of the state, it is not a traditional government agency and does not use taxpayer dollars to sustain its operations. “We’re social entrepreneurs,” Kornegay says, meaning it has a business model that strives to make a positive impact on social issues.

For Kornegay, affordable housing has been a focus throughout her career.

“I think people envision who they are and what they can be based on what they see around them,” she says. “What I like about housing is you can create community, where people can have the vision of themselves that can be anything.”

Kornegay started as a project manager at The Community Builders, a leading Boston-based affordable housing developer and owner, and then joined Urban Edge, rising to president and CEO of the community development corporation.

Prior to joining MassHousing, Kornegay served as undersecretary of the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development.

The affordable housing industry veteran’s influence extends beyond the state borders. Kornegay serves on the boards of the National Council of State Housing Agencies and the National Housing Trust.

Dara Kovel

Beacon Communities has a busy year ahead, including redeveloping a historic school building into a mixed-use community anchored by affordable housing for seniors in Beverly, Massachusetts.

The firm, along with Harborlight Homes, is transforming the 100-year-old Briscoe School into the new Beverly Village for Living and the Arts, an ambitious adaptive-reuse project that will create 85 affordable home for seniors and six live/work studios with an artist occupancy preference.

Overall, the firm has about $1.5 billion in development under way from early-stage predevelopment work through construction completion, says CEO Dara Kovel.

The firm has seen major growth in the New York region, purchasing two portfolios last year—one in Ulster County and another in western New York, effectively tripling its ownership and management presence the state. In addition, the New York City Housing Authority this year announced the selection of a team that includes Beacon to deliver $128.5 million in comprehensive repairs and upgrades to three properties in the northeast Bronx along with new construction opportunities.

The Boston-based firm is also growing in Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., according to Kovel, who became CEO in 2019 after serving as president of Beacon’s development company.

She came to affordable housing early in her career. Kovel, who grew up in Connecticut, moved to San Francisco after college and found an industry that brought together her many interests.

“As I started to learn that there was such a profession where you could build buildings, oversee construction, run numbers, work with designers and contractors, work with community groups, and change neighborhoods and change lives, I knew immediately it was something I had to do,” Kovel says.

She began as an administrative assistant at Mercy Housing and never looked back, steadily moving up the ranks at the nonprofit organization, eventually opening its Southern California office.

After Kovel and her family moved backed to the East Coast, she earned an MBA at Yale University and worked for Jonathan Rose Cos., another prominent developer, and the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, where she led the multifamily and tax credit allocation divisions.

“The moment I learned about the field, I knew it was what I wanted to do,” she says.

In addition to her work at Beacon Communities, which has roughly 18,000 units in 150 properties in 12 states, Kovel is involved in several industry organizations, including serving on the boards of the Urban Land Institute’s Terwilliger Center for Housing and the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association. Kovel is also on the board of Housing Navigator Massachusetts, a nonprofit that was established to create a platform where people can search for affordable housing opportunities throughout the state.

Kathy Laborde

The Gulf Coast Housing Partnership (GCHP) plans to open the first two projects under its bold Health + Housing initiative this year—The Pearl, a 76-unit development in Jackson, Mississippi, and H3C, a 192-unit development in New Orleans.

More than housing, the pilot projects will be anchored by on-site health centers to meet the needs of residents and the larger community.

“Most of our portfolio is in Louisiana and Mississippi, followed by Alabama,” says Kathy Laborde, GCHP president and CEO. “Those three states have dismal health outcome statistics, and one of the social determinants of health is housing.”

GCHP’s Health + Housing program recognizes the significant role that affordable housing and access to culturally competent health care has on people’s health. In addition to bringing the two components together, the initiative is changing the financing equation by attracting flexible below-market debt from health care payors, specifically Medicaid managed-care organizations.

“Our job is to connect the dots and then get this work on the ground,” Laborde says. Once The Pearl and H3C open, the team will begin capturing critical data to measure the impact these developments have on the health impacts of participating residents.

The concept has received national recognition and a $2 million grant as one of six winners out of 900 applicants in the national Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge sponsored by Wells Fargo and Enterprise Community Partners.

With a background in real estate development, Laborde was inspired years ago to use her skills to help people, including those struggling with homelessness. “I looked around New Orleans and thought we can do better than this,” she says.

Over the course of her career, Laborde has developed more than 7,000 affordable and market-rate homes and commercial and community facilities both directly and in partnership with local nonprofits, city and state government, and the private sector. Prior to joining GCHP in 2006, she operated a real estate development and consulting company.

In addition to her work at GCHP, Laborde serves on the board of Housing Partnership Network, a collaborative of the nation’s leading affordable housing and community development organizations.

Ashley Northcutt

The Women’s Affordable Housing Network (WAHN) is making big moves.

Committed to the empowerment and development of women who work in affordable housing, WAHN is in a major growth phase. The network hopes to add 18 more chapters this year, bringing the total to 27 across the country.
Central to the group’s ambitious plans is national president Ashley Northcutt, a 15-year veteran of the affordable housing industry with extensive knowledge of real estate and nonprofit taxation, low-income housing tax credits, historic tax credits, and cost segregation studies. She recently left her role as a tax partner at Tidwell Group to focus full time on WAHN.

“It’s definitely a passion,” Northcutt says. “It’s passion, and it’s the people I’m able to meet. I feel grateful every day that I connect with women and our allies across the country.”

In January alone, she received more than 50 calendar invitations from people wanting to touch base or know more about WAHN. The organization’s explosive growth is one reason it needed Northcutt to come in on a full-time basis, but it’s not the only one.

The network leaders have launched several other initiatives that will take shape this year. Dedicated to diversity and inclusion, they recently started an Ally Committee to get men involved and created the James Cromartie Active Ally Award to honor male allies.

They’ve also launched a college campus initiative to introduce students to career opportunities in affordable housing. WAHN is also working an internship program to help foster the next generation of leaders. Many people working in the field today didn’t know affordable housing was an industry until after college, notes Northcutt.

That’s not all. WAHN has its sights set on developing a podcast and hosting its own conference in May 2024.

Northcutt will play a key role in all these plans.

Marge Novak

Marge Novak has worked on affordable housing deals from multiple sides.

As senior vice president of capital markets at Berkadia Affordable Housing, she oversees capital raising and investor relations for its low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) business. In addition to LIHTC syndication, the company has a dedicated investment sales team and mortgage bankers focused on affordable housing.

“We’re continuing to focus on the growth and integration of those three components (tax credit equity, mortgage banking, and investment sales) within our affordable housing platform to benefit both our developer and investor clients,” says Novak, who joined the firm in 2020.

Four of the five managers in Berkadia’s tax credit group are women.

Novak’s interest in affordable housing was sparked in college when she wrote a paper about Massachusetts’ “anti-snob zoning act.” Years later, she decided to pursue a job in housing and began by poring through a hefty book that listed nonprofit organizations by category, including housing. That eventually led Novak to the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA), where she worked in the agency’s newly created office of housing coordination services. After two years, she moved to IHDA’s tax credit department, allocating LIHTCs.

Novak has also held leadership positions at National Equity Fund, Fannie Mae, and the Ann Arbor Housing Commission. Prior to joining Berkadia, she was an executive vice president at Cinnaire, a LIHTC syndicator and community development financial organization.

Through these different roles, she’s touched countless affordable homes.

“I love working in affordable housing because it allows me to use my finance background and love of numbers for a critically important cause,” Novak says. “I truly believe that housing is a basic human need, and I feel fortunate to have been able to devote my entire career to this cause.”

She serves on the legislative committee of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition.

Sharon Wilson Géno

Sharon Wilson Géno says she joined the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) at the right time. At the beginning of February, she took over as president of the Washington, D.C.-based organization, which brings together owners, managers, and developers that provide apartment homes for 38.9 million Americans.

“Housing is now a kitchen table issue. Everyone is talking about it, no one knows what to do about it, and no one really knows what it is,” she says. “We have an opportunity as housers to step up here and help create fundamental change and real housing policy in this country, which we haven’t really had here before. It’s been in bits and pieces at different times in different places.”

Wilson Géno, who took the helm from longtime leader Doug Bibby, says one of her priorities is to use the lessons learned from NMHC’s membership and to move all of the expertise that’s in the private sector forward to help solve what is a public problem and to rethink what the public-private partnership should look like to house residents in all places at all different price points at different times of their lives.

“This moment in time is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to truly make change in how housing is viewed and the kinds of investments that the private market can make with public participation and support to provide roofs over people’s heads in every different point in their lives,” she says. “That’s what I’m really excited about.”

Wilson Géno brings a lot to the table that she can tap into in her new role, calling her three-decade career a smorgasbord. As a veteran in the housing industry, she most recently served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Volunteers of America National Services, one of the nation’s largest owners of affordable and mixed-income housing. She also previously served the nonprofit as its senior vice president of legal affairs.

“I have been a practitioner on the ground talking with residents, I have been a lawyer inside and outside of deals. I have had the opportunity to be on the legislative and advocacy side, and I’ve had the opportunity to be an operator. And I’ve also taught housing law and housing policy as well,” she says.

Policy at all levels of government will be a major focus this year. Shortly before she officially became NMHC president, the White House announced a series of actions to increase fairness in the rental market and further fair housing principles.

“From a 30,000-foot-level, the thing that concerns me the most is the way it was framed and that we need tenant protections like somehow residents who are the clients of the multifamily industry need to be protected from the very people that are helping to support and provide that roof over their heads,” says Wilson Géno. “It perpetuates this old myth of this incredible tension between landlords and tenants. We have come a long way. We have some of the highest housing quality in the world, based in large part because of the type of housing we provide here and that the private market principles really dictate and ensure that we maintain that quality.”

She adds that a host of state and local laws have created systems to ensure a fair relationship and can better deal with situations if there are bad actors.

“Housing is very local at its heart and soul, and it’s best addressed in that framework,” she explains. “The idea that somehow the federal government needs to play a role on top of that system undermines how housing works best, which is that it meets the needs of the particular market, and states and localities have the opportunity to make those adjustments.”

In addition, the NMHC, which was formed in 1978 to fight rent control, continues to address issues around that hot-button topic across the nation.

“Rather than take the long view and do the hard work of making policy changes that will help us develop and create supply, which we all know is the long-term answer, local politicians and others have suggested that rent stabilization-type policies are a quick-fix political answer,” explains Wilson Géno. “You can understand why politicians go that route; however, it’s detrimental to the long-term problem, which is housing supply.”

She adds that by going down the rent stabilization path, those locations will struggle to get that private market investment that is needed to fix the supply problem.

“As a nation, we have invested very well in defense, we have invested very well in transportation, and we have invested very little in housing in terms of direct subsidy. We have just done small incentives relatively speaking and relied on private market capital. If that private market capital sees these kinds of disruptions, like rent stabilization and some of these tenant protection initiatives, that private capital will choose to go elsewhere, and that includes domestic capital as well as foreign capital,” she says.

She adds that private market capital is necessary for supply and worries about what the future could hold if it disappears. “We have the opportunity to fix this problem by leveraging private capital and creating a stable market environment to do so,” she says. “If that gets upended, we won’t have the money to do it, and I don’t have any delusions that the federal government is going to suddenly step up and start putting billions and trillions of dollars into the housing supply. Private market capital is absolutely necessary, and I am worried that if we’re not careful, we will upend the very thing we need the most.”

Another priority for Wilson Géno is to elevate the impact that NMHC members’ housing has on residents.

“We talk about the work we do often in terms of numbers, and those are easy measurements and important. But we don’t talk about the impact of what we do and who we do it for and what housing means to the people served by the housing we provide,” she says. “I’m hoping that we can start to elevate that conversation more and not just talk about what we do and how that’s measured, but measure it more by the impacts we’re having on people’s lives, which are enormous. Data shows the impact housing has on health, education, and well-being, and we really need to start to measure ourselves in a different way.”

She also will continue driving the NMHC’s focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“The commitment to DEI has been something that Doug started and shepherded well before it was a buzzword in looking for ways to bring more diverse voices into this industry,” she says. “We can talk about it and educate about it, but if you’re not showing real numbers, real action, and real economic activity around that and sharing that with people who have not traditionally had access to that, then you’re missing the boat.”

The NMHC in February partnered with six other real estate trade associations as part of the Commercial Real Estate Diverse Supplier Consortium to foster diversity in the industry’s supply chain and expand economic opportunities for minority and women-owned business enterprises.

The organization also maintains a strong women’s initiative. Its annual NMHC Women’s Event earlier this year drew around 730 women. In addition, a video series continues those conversations from the event, and NMHC hosted several networking events in different cities in the past year.

“It’s a great opportunity for women to develop those relationships and generate business opportunities for themselves in the localities where they are,” says Wilson Géno.