Why I’m an optimist on affordable housing
Faculty member Carol Galante is creating a laboratory at Berkeley for housing affordability innovation. Read a Contra Costa Times Q&A and profile on what she's learned as an FHA commissioner and affordable-housing advocate.
May 20, 2015
Carol Galante
“When communities aren’t meeting their obligations for affordable housing — at some point that local authority needs to be trumped by some kind of state appeals board,” says Carol Galante, a former Federal Housing Administration commissioner under President Obama. “As hard as that is to achieve politically, it’s the kind of stick that would make a difference.”
A longtime affordable-housing advocate, she is now on the faculty at Berkeley, where she’s helping to build a center to serve as laboratory and catalyst for housing affordability innovation.
Galante was interviewed recently about what she learned from her six years in Washington (during a financial crisis precipitated by a housing market collapse), her 22 years with an affordable-housing nonprofit and why, despite tremendous challenges, she remains an optimist on affordable housing.
Read the Contra Costa Times‘ Q&A and profile for details.