Harold Simon

480 Posts

Harold Simon is the former executive director of the National Housing Institute and former publisher of Shelterforce.
Community Development Field

“Why Would a Hospital Do This?” Shifting Institutional Culture for Health Equity

Hanaa Hamdi is the director of health impact investment strategies and partnerships at New Jersey Community Capital, the state’s largest CDFI. Michellene Davis is the executive vice president and chief […]

Community Development Field

A Health Insurer and a CDC Collaborate to Move the Needle on Housing and Health

David Adame of Chicanos Por La Causa, and Joe Guadio of UnitedHealthcare talk about the value of addressing social determinants and lessons they’ve learned.

Michael Bodaken
Community Development Field

Interview with Michael Bodaken, retiring director of the National Housing Trust

Shelterforce took the occasion of Michael Bodaken’s retiring from the National Housing Trust to speak with him about how he got into housing, some of his favorite projects, and his recommendations for the field going forward.

Jeanne Fekade-Selassie
Community Development Field

New Money on the Block: Funders for Housing and Opportunity

A new funding collaborative, Funders for Housing and Opportunity, has just launched. The collaborative, officially a project of the New Ventures Fund, involves (so far) nine large and well-known foundations.

The view of downtown Richmond, Virginia, as seen from Jefferson Park.
Health

Interview with Mark D. Constantine, president and CEO of Richmond Memorial Health Foundation

Mark Constantine gives us a view of one foundation’s attempt to learn to walk the walk and how that commitment can influence the work one organization does to create a culture of health in its community.

Kresge president Rip Rapson
Arts & Culture

Interview with Rip Rapson, president and CEO of the Kresge Foundation

If you look at what Rip Rapson has accomplished and the insight he brings to his current work, you’ll get a much better picture of who he is and the challenging work he spearheads at the Kresge Foundation.

From left, Andrea Levere, Andrea Luquetta-Kern, Woody Widrow, and Holly Frindell.
Financial System

In Pursuit of Financial Well-Being: A Conversation on Fairness, Accessibility, and Empowerment

In a world of growing financial complexity, predatory products, stagnating wages, and escalating inequality, financial insecurity is a dramatic problem. We gathered a group of leaders who are combating financial insecurity for a conversation on how it all relates.

Sheila Crowley speaks from a podium as she holds a piece of paper.
Financial Well-Being

Interview with Sheila Crowley, past president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition

Crowley has led the organization through dramatic times, keeping a focus on those with the most pressing housing need when many wanted to just talk homeownership.

Community Development Field

Interview with Chester Hartman, Radical Urban Planner

As he retires, the founder of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council reflects on the fields of urban planning, community development, and fair housing.

John Henneberger
Community Development Field

Interview with John Henneberger, Texas Low Income Housing Information Service–Part 1

Shelterforce talks with John Henneberger of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service, one of the 2014 MacArthur Fellows.

Interview with Jay Williams, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development

Jay Williams was the mayor of Youngstown, Ohio, from 2006 to 2011, at a time when Youngstown was attracting notoriety for making the unusual assertion that, rather than longing for its bygone glory days before the steel mills closed, it was going to embrace a vision of becoming a smaller, yet more vibrant city. (See Shelterforce’s “Small Is Beautiful, Again”, for more on this approach and how it affects low-income residents.) Williams is now assistant secretary of commerce for economic development, and administrator of the Economic Development Administration. Prior to joining the U.S. Department of Commerce, Williams served as the executive director of the Office of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers, and he also served in the White House as deputy director for the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. In this position, he led efforts to engage mayors, city council members, and county officials around the country.

Shelterforce spoke with Williams at the conference of the National Alliance of Economic Development Associations last fall in San Antonio.

Wayne Meyer, president of New Jersey Community Capital.
Community Development Field

Interview with Wayne Meyer, President of New Jersey Community Capital

New Jersey Community Capital shakes up our ideas of how nonprofit housers can and should approach neighborhood stabilization