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Issue #129, May/June 2003 |
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Issue #129, May/June 2003 |
| Industry News |
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People
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Mary McGreal was named executive director of Common Ground, the nonprofit housing and community development organization in New York City. Rosanne Haggerty, the founder and former executive director, will become president. McGreal, an attorney who has worked in human services for 17 years, was associate executive director of social services for Catholic Community Services. Seedco has appointed Anne M. Rader deputy vice president of workforce development and housing. Rader was senior manager for housing and community development at Fannie Mae in Washington, DC. Rader currently serves as a presidential appointee to the National Council on Disabilities and the National Board of Directors for the United Cerebral Palsy Associations. Robert Young was named the top hero at the first Volvo for Life Awards. Young, the executive director of Red Feather Development Group in Seattle, teaches Native Americans how to build sustainable, energy-efficient houses out of straw bales. The prize recognizes everyday heroes in all fields and comes with a top prize of a new Volvo every three years for life, $10,000 cash and $50,000 for the charity of the winner’s choice. The Fannie Mae Foundation has appointed René Carter director of public affairs. Carter will provide strategic oversight of internal and external communications. Carter was most recently with Manning, Selvage and Lee, where she served as vice president, designing and implementing strategic communication programs for private and public sector clients. |
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WILLIAM L. BRACH died from complications of leukemia on May 6th. For many years Bill was a member of the board of the National Housing Institute, where he was always generous with his time and wisdom, challenging our thinking and focusing our actions. With wit and humor, he brought to our organization his optimism and deep understanding of the housing issues confronting the poor.
Bill was active in the fight for social justice all his life, starting in the early 1950s when he worked to have the city of East Orange, NJ – his employer – desegregate municipal facilities. “Bill took on something that was very unpopular right at the beginning of the civil rights movement,” said US Congressman Donald Payne (D-NJ), who worked with Brach on political, social and humanitarian issues for over 45 years. “He was really a legend, a guy who was ahead of his time,” Payne said. “He looked at things just one or two ways – whether it was just or whether it was unjust, whether it was fair or unfair.” He received his law degree from Cornell Law School in 1949 and quickly became an expert in the area of urban development and housing law. As a member of the city counsel of East Orange in the 1950s, he devised a Maintenance Code that is still used as a national model. He served as counsel for Region I of HUD in the early 1960s and worked in the law firm he co-founded in the late 1960s. From helping to start a local child tutoring program to his work for the International Program for Arid Land Crops, an organization working to help poor farmers, primarily in West Africa, Bill’s interests and activities in social justice were wide-ranging and intense. Bill is survived by his wife Nancy, and children Tara, Betsy, Peter and Norma. He made us and many others hopeful and confident that we could make the world a better place. Bill Brach made the world a better place, and we will miss him as an activist, a mentor and a friend. |
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| Organizations & Initiatives |
Neighborhood Housing Services received $1.75 million and the Center for Economic Progress received $1.5 million from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to support community development efforts in some of Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods. NHS’s grant will support work on affordable housing and neighborhood improvement. CEP will use their grant to advance financial literacy and family economic security. www.macfound.org. |
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