The work of NeighborWorks America started with visionary leaders who set out to pave a new path forward against redlining, disinvestment, and marginalization of people and communities. Those leaders were driven to build organizations in partnership with residents to strengthen their neighborhoods. Their legacy is NeighborWorks America and their values – equity, inclusion, integrity, and service – remain at the core of the organization.
Throughout the years, leaders have embraced these values to impact transformative change as part of their own work on behalf of NeighborWorks and its network of organizations. The NeighborWorks Founders Award was established to recognize these champions of change and their contributions to housing and community development.
With her background in social work, Jeanette Duncan had seen people living in substandard housing conditions, both in the U.S. and out of it. As she worked to address those issues, she learned about a new government program helping fund loans, supplies and tools so eligible people could build their own homes.
Duncan thought: "That sounds like a solution." She became a founder of People's Self-Help Housing in California, which has helped more than 1,500 people build their own homes.
"We started even before Habitat for Humanity," says Duncan. "The idea was that people would learn about team-building and the construction process. They could also work through credit issues; we could offer a well-rounded approach so they could be successful."
Duncan is one of two recipients of the inaugural Founders Award from NeighborWorks America for her service.
Duncan, now retired, started in a small office with a part-time bookkeeper and two construction supervisors. One of her board members was an architect who drew the housing plans. The local Methodist Church loaned them $5,000 to buy six parcels of land.
"My thought was to always give people equity any way we could,"says Duncan, who was, for years, the region's only female CEO. Housing seemed a tangible way to empower individuals and "to make sure everyone has a fair chance to have a roof over their heads that they can afford."
Many who came to her program were farmworkers and Duncan, who had worked with Civil Rights Activist Caesar Chavez on issues affecting farmworkers, added rental housing with support services to her programming. "I always thought instead of just building rental housing alone, we needed to do it with support services,"she says. "You can't just do the housing. You have to have the services to support the people in the housing."During her tenure, she was involved with the development of 1,825 rental apartments.
Dr. Dieter Eckert, a board member for People's Self-Help Housing for many years, says "support"was
At both People's Self-Help Housing and in the NeighborWorks network, where PSHH became an affiliate in 2011, Duncan is known as a mentor, says Kenneth Trigueiro, the current president and CEO. Her legacy and mentoring continue to be an inspiration, he says, "a north star directive to advance equity and opportunities."
Like others, he recalls Duncan arriving at work each morning, visiting each staff person and letting them know they were doing a good job. "Each day, Jeanette would make the office rounds, visiting staff to check in and see how they were doing, with care and concern for each person's well-being, as well as their families,"he says.
In assessing lessons learned from more than 45 years in housing development, Duncan says, "You have to be willing to travel and learn how government works, how policy is developed. You have to go to places where other people in the world are doing nonprofit housing. And you have to mentor people, whether they work for you or not."
Margo Kelly, NeighborWorks' first chief operating officer, also received a Founders Award. Honorable mentions went to Alan Arthur, former president and CEO of Aeon, and Chris Krehmeyer, president and CEO of Beyond Housing.
