Categories: Network Events
06.17.2015
1,600+ registered guests, 23 workshops, 100 panelists, one day!
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The Network’s Executive Director Laura Mascuch welcomes the crowd at the 15th Annual New York State Supportive Housing Conference on June 4, 2015.
The 15th Annual Supportive Housing Conference kicked off the largest gathering of the supportive housing community ever with a deeply inspiring keynote address from StoryCorps’ Founder and President Dave Isay. Echoing StoryCorps’ mission and supportive housing’s moral core, Mr. Isay reminded participants that every individual matters. He also said that of the hundreds of keynotes he delivers, this one had meant the most to him personally. The morning also featured remarks from retired Brigadier General Dr. Loree Sutton, Commissioner of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Veterans Affairs, and a rousing welcome from Executive Director Laura Mascuch. At the outset of the day, Network’s Chair William Traylor shared his own story about his personal history and connection to the world of supportive housing.
We’d like to express enormous gratitude to everyone who attended, spoke and volunteered at the 15th Annual New York State Supportive Housing Conference. It’s no secret that this conference is the largest single undertaking of our calendar year. We put it on, year after year, to shine a light on the extraordinary work being done by our more than 220 nonprofit members. We salute you, and we thank you for creating 50,000 units of supportive housing in New York State.
This year’s workshops reflected the incredible diversity of our community. To learn more about each workshop – including sessions on housing veterans, design, Health Homes, hoarding, at-risk youth, meditation, housing seniors, and many other topics – follow this link.
Eight simultaneous workshops followed the morning session including one on “Building a Better NYC” with NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Vicki Been, soon to be confirmed NYS Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) Commissioner Jamie Rubin, NYC Housing Development Corporation’s COO & General Counsel Richard Froehlich, and US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Regional Administrator for NY & NJ Holly Leicht.
Another morning workshop on the shifting world of healthcare and how that may impact housing featured Deputy Secretary for Health Courtney Burke, Office of Mental Health Commissioner Ann Marie Sullivan, and Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services General Counsel Robert Kent, and was moderated by Services for the UnderServed (SUS) President and CEO Donna Colonna.
Other morning panels included one on re-entry housing with Trish Marsik, Executive Director of the Mayor’s Task Force on Behavioral Health and Criminal Justice, Kristin Miller, New York Director of CSH, Marta Nelson, Executive Director of the NYS Council on Community Reentry and Reintegration, as well as JoAnne Page, President and COO of the Fortune Society Another panel focused on ending veteran homelessness and feature Dr. Sutton, Martha Kegel, Executive Director of UNITY Housing of Greater New Orleans, Richard Cho, Senior Policy Director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness and Craig Hinds, a veteran and tenant of Jericho Project’s Kingsbridge Terrace.
After a networking lunch, the early afternoon sessions included a panel discussion “Tackling the Homelessness Crisis” with HRA Commissioner Steven Banks, OTDA Executive Deputy Commissioner Sharon Devine and Assistant Secretary of Housing, Kisha Santiago-Martinez. Center for Urban Community Services’ Executive Director Tony Hannigan moderated. And StoryCorps staff, along with Fortune Society’s Stan Richards and Castle Gardens tenant Derek Kelly introduced StoryCorps’ new app that allows anyone with a cellphone to record an interview for StoryCorps and upload a StoryCorps story to the Library of Congress.
There was a packed house for innovative financing models with Martin Dunn, President of Dunn Development Corp., Arlo Monell Chase, the VP of Real Estate and Property Development at SUS, as well as the President of Finance and Development at HCR, Marian Zucker, and Robert Sanborn, Principal of Robert Sanborn Development, on this high-powered panel. Another Standing Room Only session, “Meditation for Staff and Tenants” featured Leslie Booker, Director of Training at The Lineage Project, and Taz Tagore, Co-Founder of the Reciprocity Foundation, and Teri Sivilli, Project Manager of the Contemplative Based Resilience Project at the Garrison Institute and was moderated by the Network’s Chief Digital Officer Sarah Schenck.
Still another packed house greeted a workshop “Health Homes & Supportive Housing in 2015 and Beyond” with CAMBA’s Kevin Muir, and Venus Alfaro and Carolyn Baginski of Center for Urban Community Services. Bonnie Mohan of Bronx Health and Housing Consortium moderated.
In the final round of workshops, one panel introduced the Buried In Treasure (BIT) evidence-based practice for addressing hoarding. Another featured Dr. Josh Bamberger of the San Francisco Department of Health and Arturo Bendixen of AIDS Foundation of Chicago as well as DOH Deputy Medicaid Director Liz Misa for a panel discussing best practices for housing the very highest need Medicaid recipients. That panel was moderated by Robin Hood Managing Director Eric Weingartner.
A panel on “Reimagining the New York City Landscape” reflected on the early proposals by the City to implement their 200K-unit plan, Housing New York and featured Ray Hodges, Director of Planning and Development, Division of Special Needs Housing, NYC Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development; Brad Lander, NYC Council Member and Deputy Leader for Policy; Michelle de la Uz, Executive Director, Fifth Avenue Committee; Howard Slatkin, Deputy Executive Director, Strategic Planning, NYC Dept. of City Planning; and was moderated by the Network’s Nicole Branca.
To the 1,600+ registered attendees: we thank you so much for making this day so memorable!