Four industry pioneers will be inducted into Affordable Housing Finance’s Hall of Fame in November for their lasting contributions to the industry.
They have helped develop thousands of affordable homes, provided critical financing, and pushed the envelope on better design, services, and solutions to serve those experiencing homelessness.
The 2018 Hall of Fame inductees are:
Mike Alvidrez: Alvidrez has devoted his career to ending homelessness in Los Angeles. He has been with Skid Row Housing Trust for 28 years, with 14 of those years as executive director and then CEO. During his time at the Trust, he has been hands-on in creating permanent supportive housing with top-notch design and services to provide residents a place to live with dignity and tools to obtain stabilization. He retired at the end of June but remains active with the Trust, serving as CEO emeritus and the newly created external ambassador role. Prior to the Trust, the Los Angeles native worked for the Community Corporation of Santa Monica, where he focused on acquiring and rehabbing housing stock that had fallen into disrepair.
Carol Galante: Galante has dedicated her career to affordable housing through various roles. She helped to develop thousands of units as president and CEO of BRIDGE Housing, the largest nonprofit developer of affordable, mixed-income, and mixed-use developments in California. She then served at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) first as deputy assistant secretary for multifamily housing and then as assistant secretary for housing and Federal Housing Administration commissioner under the Obama administration. Now she teaches the next generation and advances policy as the faculty director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California at Berkeley.
Kim Herman: Herman has been an integral part of the affordable housing scene in Washington state for decades. A native of Washington, he has served as the executive director of the Washington State Housing Finance Commission since being appointed in 1984. The only executive director the commission has known, Herman was instrumental in getting the low-income housing tax credit program off the ground in Washington after it was enacted in 1986. He also previously served as the Washington project director of HUD’s Rural Assistance Initiative Program and as executive director of the Housing Authority of the City of Yakima.
Nan Roman: For almost three decades, Roman has been a tireless advocate in the fight to end and prevent homelessness in the United States. As president and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a national nonpartisan nonprofit, she has been a leading voice in the fight and has focused on collecting data, creating solutions, and advocating for funding. Roman has been a proponent of Housing First, which prioritizes getting individuals and families into housing quickly without barriers to entry, and was instrumental in launching a nationwide initiative for communities around the nation to develop and implement plans to end homelessness.
The Hall of Fame inductees will be honored at a ceremony at AHF Live, Nov. 12-14, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago and featured in the October issue of Affordable Housing Finance.
