20 in 2020: ANHD's Year in Review

2020 has been a year filled with challenges, pivots, and reimagining. We’ve endured grief, anger, fear, and loss. But 2020 has also had hope, triumph, unity, and celebration. Below are ANHD’s top 20 moments of 2020! They highlight that when we acknowledge and continue to unpack the marginalization of low-income and Black, Indigenous, People of Color - and when we build community power - we can advance more equitable, thriving neighborhoods. ANHD is grateful to our more than 80 members, allies, and supporters who worked with us, stood with us, and believed in us during one of the most challenging years, and we look forward to continuing the hard work in the year ahead.

 

Eight weeks in as ANHD’s new Executive Director, and with only one office laptop in our cabinets, Barika X. Williams helped transition ANHD to remote work in a way that allowed us to come together as a team and fight forward throughout 2020. We’re all grateful for her leadership in this moment.

 

ANHD was among the first in the country to show how the COVID-19 health crisis reveals and exacerbates racial and structural inequities with a series of data maps that got the attention and a mention by Van Jones on CNN. 

 

ANHD stands for Black Lives after the continuous acts of police brutality, and continues the rally call that housing justice is economic justice is racial justice to reinforce our purpose and help tie this thread together for others in the field.

 

ANHD collaborated with the Urban Design Forum to launch Power After the Pandemic, asking Mehrsa Baradaran, New York Senator James Sanders Jr., Robbie Makinen, and other community and economic development experts their transformative ideas for creating more just cities.

 

ANHD worked with our members to define principles and priorities for rent relief and published an analysis on the urgent need for rent relief and a true eviction moratorium.

 

ANHD partnered with national umbrella non-profit the Urban Manufacturing Alliance to publish a first-of-its-kind toolkit on the benefits of and how to advance mission-driven industrial development, which developers, lenders, investors, banks, government, and community organizations can use in this moment to bring urban manufacturing back to our cities equitably.

 

ANHD re-imagined how New York City could spend its resources to prioritize People Over Police in it’s widely shared analysis that illustrated how NYC’s FY 21 Budget could put community needs first.

 

ANHD worked with local and national allies to hold financial institutions accountable to our communities, including suing the CFPB for decreasing access to mortgage data continuing the federal government’s rollback of housing discrimination protections, holding a rally to protect the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and having conversations with lenders to protect local branches. 

 

ANHD worked with and through our members and coalition, United for Small Business NYC, to support our city’s small businesses, especially BIPOC owned small businesses, including hosting town halls, ensuring the Commercial Lease Assistance Program was restored, and providing education on the need for new legislation to Save Our Storefronts.

 

The Thriving Communities Coalition launched a platform of principles and demands for a new approach to planning and land use in New York City that would center and prioritize racial equity, and they will continue to ask current and future elected officials to implement this vision.

 

Barika X. Williams was selected to the inaugural cohort of the Robin Hood Power Fund, recognizing her leadership, vision, and expertise to the fight against poverty and for justice, and provided her with the resources she needs in this moment to lead us forward.

 

ANHD supported and worked with the Coalition Against Tenant Harassment to evaluate how well the city’s Certificate of No Harassment Pilot Program has disincentivized landlords from harassing and displacing low-income tenants.

 

ANHD argued that the City must start to Plan for People of Color and Rezone for Racial Equity to ensure our land use and planning processes address land-standing injustices like redlining and exclusionary zoning.

 

ANHD launched a major redesign of its Displacement Alert Project Portal, which allows users to secure detailed building data, view snapshots of displacement risk by any New York City geography, and build comprehensive queries that allow for citywide searches – including how COVID-19 is impacting New York City’s housing landscape.

 

ANHD asked the City to go deeper and be bold in their Where We Live Fair Housing plan by providing actionable steps toward dismantling racial inequities across New York in January and again in October, and we will continue to do so in 2021.

 

ANHD has been engaged with a unique court case that has potential wide-spread ramifications for non-profit affordable housing development in New York City and beyond. ANHD is in a unique position to inform stakeholders that will be impacted by the Riseboro v SunAmerica case decision because of our role providing consistent, high level housing analysis.

 

ANHD published our annual State of Bank Reinvestment report, laying out the major aspects of the OCC’s final CRA rule that would hinder COVID recovery and offering ways for banks to help foster an equitable recovery that puts forth an equitable CRA reform framework for federal bank regulators.

 

ANHD recruited and enrolled 25 staff from New York City non-profits into our Center for Community Leadership 10-month organizing training and support program and launched an additional support network specifically for BIPOC community organizers.

 

ANHD continued to support the next generation of Community Development Corporation leaders with our Morgan Stanley Community Development Graduate Fellowship program, including offering new alumni programming opportunities to strengthen this growing network of practitioners locally and globally.

 

ANHD partnered with NYCETC and RPA to launch the Inclusive Growth Initiative, which will bring forward and support the next New York City leaders on economic development to create a roadmap for the city to add good jobs, retain and expand affordable housing, and drive the economy forward in a way that reduces structural inequities and increases access to opportunity.

 

 

 

We thank you for the conversations, challenges, shared fights, resources, laughs, and resilience you provided us with in 2020 to help us achieve these highlights. We appreciate your consideration of a financial contribution to help fuel our work in 2021.

Help us #BuildCommunityPower by donating $21 for ANHD in 2021!

Stay Safe, Be Well, and Fight Forward.