As affordable housing and community development professionals from all over the country gathered in Pittsburgh last week for the NeighborWorks Training Institute and symposium, they focused on challenges, on innovations and on imagining the future of affordable housing and community development. The mid-week symposium, "45 & Forward: Preparing Our Field for the Future," put wide-ranging discussions about the future front and center, as experts and practitioners examined the field of affordable housing and community development from all directions: the history, the present and the future.
"You can't be a good student of the future without looking at history," explained Gabe Cervantes, director of Scalable Foresight at Institute for the Future. You also can't predict the future, he said. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't spend time thinking about it." That doesn't mean we shouldn't prepare for it or challenge our assumptions.
Rachel Hatch, chief operating office of Institute for the Future, talked about the year 2034, about what could come, and about things we already know – for example, that younger generations are already made up of a majority people of color. The ability to accept and thrive on diversity is essential, she said.
What else can we look for in 2034? She asked the audience to look ahead with her. One in five Americans will be over 65. That's a prediction backed by today's projections. She imagined that millennials will be co-buying homes, leading to new types of homeownership. That generative AI could be used to facilitate enhanced relationships between people. That there will be more climate-driven disruptions and new forms of "food citizenship." There could be "low-appetite communities," as people use appetite suppression to adapt to a changing diet and food availability; she sees changing architecture as sea levels rise.
Added Cervantes: "We need to figure out what is working, what isn't, and how to anticipate the long-term threats. How can we prepare ourselves, our organizations and communities to walk away from the futures we don't want and run toward futures we do want?"
They asked the audience to think of drivers of change as puddles on the ground. Do you turn around? Jump over the puddle? Or go around it?
As an exercise, they asked participants to imagine the future and write a headline and a short news story. The concepts varied. One group imagined the wealth gap finally closing. Another: Movable houses so that people could be close to family, could change with the climate. Another: A foundation, named for Pittsburgh's Dorothy Mae Richardson who, together with her neighbors, brought bankers and community members to the table to talk about funneling investment back to their community — and saving it.
This work about exploring to the future "is about bringing to the table about what works for you," Cervantes explained. "Focus on imagination. On research. Or data. It's not done after one afternoon or one symposium. It's a habit that you'll have to build."
NeighborWorks staff remained ready to do build it. While the organization is celebrating its 45th anniversary, it is not resting on its laurels, Marietta Rodriguez, president & CEO, said during the symposium. Rather, NeighborWorks is looking ahead.
"We ask ourselves: What's next?" Rodrigez said. "How can we ensure that our field is not only ready for the future, but actively shaping it?" The challenges we face demand that we be more than reactive, she said. "We must be visionary. We must not only weather the storms but anticipate them, adapt to them and emerge stronger on the other side."
Speakers during the day offered more insights on what it would take to prepare for the future:
- Chris Herbert, managing director of Joint Center for Housing Students at Harvard University, said we are wired to predict what will happen next to save ourselves. But it's important to dig deep into the narratives we have. Right now, when we look at the shortage in housing, we think we need to build more and build it quickly. But as he looks to the future, "I see the Baby Boomers dying off. I see immigration already ebbing." In the future, he predicted, there will be parts of the country where there is excess housing supply, while in other locations, there will still be more demand than can be met.
- Khalil Shahyd, senior strategist with the National Resources Defense Council, asked: As climate stressors become increasingly intense, "how do we create sustainable community for people families without setting the earth on fire? How do we implement solutions on ground?"
- Michael O'Bryan, distinguished resident fellow, Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation, pointed out: "You can't escape bias. But you can interrogate what's informing it. That's your superpower if you choose to accept it.
- Vendette Gavin, principal, Verge Impact Partners, shared: "The best way to understand a problem is acting to change it."
- Emily Yu, founder of AI Priori, was optimistic about Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a tool and its role in community. "When you come back to the role of community, data is right there at the center. Whose data is it? It's community data. We all have an opportunity here to embrace and use AI in a way to positively impact the communities we work in and for."
- Don Chen of the Surdna Foundation, said that leadership matters, including nonprofit leadership -- especially with how different the world may be.
- George McCarthy, president and CEO of Lincon Institute of Land policy, urged practitioners to examine the number of private investors who now own homes instead of community members. The information has been available for years, he said, but we are only now starting to do something about it. "We must do more."
- Maria Garciaz, CEO of NeighborWorks Salt Lake, explained that the housing affordability problem impacts more than residents, but whole communities. It can make the difference in whether a company moves to her city and whether their employees can afford homes. Diversity is also key. "Will employees feel like they belong?"
- Stacy Spann, head of Housing Access and Affordability for Wells Fargo, said that "housing itself provides the foundation for people to thrive and build wealth." He announced a $120,000 grant that would go to several NeighborWorks affiliate organizations who are doing innovative work in the creative housing space.
- Vickie Oldman, Seven Sisters Community Development Group, brought a Native perspective to the future. "We are not at the beginning of anything," she said. "All of us are standing on our ancestors' shoulders. Think about how we move forward, think about knowing your history and bringing our ancestors with us."
At the end of the day, Cervantes once again addressed the future, after going through what he called "the foresight cycle." The cycle, he said, is a circle. When you get to an end, there are new questions and new pieces of evidence. There are new futures to start exploring. NeighborWorks staff remained committed to exploring those futures. Consistent in all of them was a commitment to affordable housing and community development, and to helping people find a safe place to call home.
