"There's nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can't solve," says Andre Perry, a fellow at Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program where he studies Black majority cities.

Black homeownership rates continue to lag behind those of the white community. This is a gap that the affordable housing and community development fields have strived to close for generations. And the issue hasn't gotten better over time. In fact, communities of color are consistently among the hardest hit during economic downturns. 

Isileli Tausinga says people often wonder: Why leave a beautiful island to come to the desert in Utah? His answer? Education, religion and opportunity.

Chief executive officers from three major community development intermediaries, including NeighborWorks America, talked about renewed commitments to racial equity, new partnerships and allocating resources in the time of a pandemic as part of a virtual panel hosted by NeighborWorks. The CEOs, all people of color and together for the first time in a forum like this, shared their thoughts on the state of community development in front of 70 executives from NeighborWorks network organizations based in the Northeast.

As communities struggle to find balance and recover from the impacts of COVID19, high unemployment and social injustice, NeighborWorks organizations are working to balance the need for change and support equality while also keeping residents united and safe. 

Kelleigh Gamble, CEO for Neighborhood Housing Services Birmingham Inc., talks about recent days, and his expectations and hopes for the weeks ahead.

As communities struggle to find balance and recover from the impacts of COVID-19, high unemployment and social injustice, NeighborWorks organizations are working to balance the need for change and supporting equality while also keeping residents united and safe. 

Neighborhood. Porch. Living room. That's where James Clark, head of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area De-escalation Center, says we must go to talk about gun violence within communities. And that's where his outreach workers have been going for the past two and a half years. 

The black community is facing an internal crisis, Clark says. "African-Americans have to look at the fact that African-Americans kill African-Americans every day in every major city. We can't ignore that. Not to address it is passing it on to future generations." 

Julie Saylor, library associate II and a tour guide for the exhibit Undesign the Redline, looked at the group gathered around her at Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library and asked her opening question: "How many of you know what redlining is?"

Hands shot up — lots of hands. 

NeighborWorks America’s race, equity, diversity and inclusion, or REDI work, is here to stay, says Rutledge Simmons, executive vice president, general counsel and REDI officer. “It’s not an initiative,” he says. It’s a value structure. “We want to make sure it’s part of our everyday thinking.”

With Don Trahan Jr., the organization’s new REDI director, on board, it’s a good time to look at where NeighborWorks America has been and at what’s coming next in the effort to bring diversity and inclusion to the forefront – and to keep it there.