AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE's
five Affordable Housing Hall of Fame inductees this year
all have been trailblazers in serving low-income
Americans.
On the following pages,
you'll read about
Renée Lewis Glover, president and CEO of
the Atlanta Housing Authority; Sister Lillian Murphy, CEO
of Mercy Housing; and John McEvoy, former executive
director of the National Council of State Housing Agencies.
You'll also read moving
tributes about the late George Knight and the late I.
Donald Terner.
Knight, a Presbyterian minister, spent nearly 25 years
working for the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp. (now known
as NeighborWorks America), 10 as its executive director.
Under Knight's leadership, the
national nonprofit that provides financial support and
assistance for community-based revitalization efforts hit
the $1 billion mark for annual direct investment in
distressed communities. Also, the NeighborWorks Multifamily
Initiative was created to increase
organizations' capacity to take
on new housing development by attracting additional public
and private investment, strengthen their asset-management
systems, and help them develop resident leaders.
Knight retired in 2000, but continued to serve the
affordable housing on the boards of the National Housing
Trust and Volunteers of America as well as a member of the
National Housing Conference. He died of cancer Aug. 18,
2008.
Terner was considered an entrepreneurial visionary for
affordable housing. BRIDGE Housing was formed in 1983 from
an anonymous grant to the San Francisco Foundation to
spearhead new solutions to the worsening shortage of
affordable housing, and Terner was a principal founder and
the nonprofit's first executive
director. BRIDGE's approach was
to produce thousands of units efficiently while retaining
its community service mission.
Terner died tragically on April 3, 1996, in a plane
crash with Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and 31 others as
part of a humanitarian mission to Bosnia.
But the organization he helped to create is now one of
the leading affordable housing nonprofits in California and
has provided more than 13,000 homes in its 25-plus
years.
Renée Lewis Glover: Inspiring a Change
in Public Housing
Sister Lillian Murphy: Murphy Builds a National
Power
John McEvoy: McEvoy Victorious for the LIHTC
George Knight: Knight Dedicated to Industry
I. Donald Terner: Terner Relentless in Pursuit of
Housing