Inside Policy | Fair Housing in a Shifting Federal Environment
As federal policy direction shifts, the federal commitment to fair housing is under intense pressure with high-stakes impact on both people and places. Growing distance between anti-discrimination goals, federal priorities and regulatory guidance worries advocates of equity and inclusion. Join this session to hear from a leading national fair housing voice about the status of fair housing, how communities are responding and how funders can rethink both the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
Speakers
Lisa Rice, President and CEO, National Fair Housing Alliance
Amy Kenyon, Program Officer, Just Cities and Regions, Ford Foundation (moderator)
About Our Speakers
Lisa Rice is the president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA). Previously, she served as Executive Vice President with NFHA and managed the resource development, public policy, communications, and enforcement divisions of the agency. NFHA works throughout the U.S. to eliminate discriminatory barriers in housing markets and to expand equal housing and lending opportunities. It provides a range of programs to affirmatively further fair housing, including training, education, outreach, advocacy, consulting, enforcement, community development, and neighborhood stabilization initiatives. In her role at NFHA, Lisa works to advance fair housing principles and to preserve and broaden fair housing protections, expanding equal housing opportunities for millions of Americans. She played a major role in crafting sections of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and in establishing the Office of Fair Lending within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Lisa served previously as the CEO of the Toledo Fair Housing Center where she also established the Northwest Ohio Development Agency, a community development financial institution, and Restoring the Dream, the State of Ohio’s first anti-predatory lending remediation program. Amy Kenyon works on the Just Cities and Regions team. Her work has focused on reforming the rules that shape regional development in US metropolitan areas in order to expand economic opportunities for low-income people. Her grant making has supported integrated approaches to equitable development, through improving access to permanently affordable housing and transit choices and deepening community engagement in land use planning processes.
Amy Kenyon has been a program officer at the Ford Foundation since 2013. Her work has focused on reforming the rules that shape regional development in US metropolitan areas in order to expand economic opportunities for low-income people. Her grant making has supported integrated approaches to equitable development, through improving access to permanently affordable housing and transit choices and deepening community engagement in land use planning processes. She has more than 15 years of experience in the nonprofit and public sector, with an emphasis on developing and implementing finance and community development solutions for low-income communities. Before assuming the role of program officer, she worked for three years as a program manager with the foundation’s Metropolitan Opportunity program, coordinating its evaluation and helping to build a unified theory of change and place-based strategies that span its three initiatives. In collaboration with a cross-program working group, she also supported the development and rollout of a foundation-wide results reporting process.
Earlier, Amy was a consultant with numerous government agencies and nonprofit organizations on projects that helped to improve the viability of low-income communities, promote entrepreneurship among disadvantaged populations, and maintain environmental sustainability. She also served as a director of economic and community development in upstate New York. Amy earned her master’s degree from the New School for Public Engagement’s program in urban policy and management, where she concentrated in organizational effectiveness and community development finance. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international business from Messiah College.