Happy Holidays!

This is our final annual campaign letter. It is from our Executive Director, Chris Estes.

Dear Concerned Citizen,

As everyone knows this has been one of the most challenging, uncertain and active periods in the history of the affordable housing movement. With great challenges have come tremendous responses from the Federal Government, state agencies, and local for profit and nonprofit organizations. I am proud to say that the Housing Coalition has played an active role in creating solutions. We’ve provided direct technical assistance to organizations and communities, influenced public policy and helped people in crisis find the resources they need.

For me, the highlights of our work in 2009 began with hosting our first ever Policy Summit in the spring that brought together over 150 folks to learn about how to access recovery act funding. We completed more foreclosure prevention workshops this year than any other year of the program. We’ve received tremendous feedback from clients across the state who have been able to stay in their homes because of the information they received at these workshops. Our Carolina Homeless Information Network was recognized as HMIS of the Year by HUD and successfully prepared hundreds of agencies to participate in the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program. We launched our outreach program by providing staff support to local housing advocacy coalitions in Charlotte, Asheville and Raleigh. We also facilitated Fair Housing trainings for over 300 property managers and landlords. In addition, we launched our first ever Annual Campaign and produced our first Annual Report since 2001. To top it off, this fall we co-hosted the largest affordable housing conference in NC with CICCAR and NCHFA, and held a special training track for housing counselors.

Through all of this, the NC Housing Coalition has remained steadfast in our efforts to be the advocate for low income people in need of quality affordable and accessible housing. We strive to be the connection between those of you in the field and the information you need to do your work and to connect you to the partners and resources that will help you meet these many challenges our state is facing.

Our reward is your success. It is your grand opening, seeing your residents talk about how much they love their new home and how your housing has allowed them the freedom to live outside of an institution. It is the stories of developers able to build when they didn’t think it was possible. It is the relief from the client on the phone when they get information about who can help in their local community. This is what makes our work so special. We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year.


Warm Regards,
Chris Estes
Executive Director, NC Housing Coalition

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