National Housing Conference announces 40th Annual Gala honorees
The United Voice for Housing honors organizations meeting the housing needs of America’s veterans
WASHINGTON, DC – June 12, 2012 – (RealEstateRama) — The National Housing Conference, the affordable housing advocacy group known as the United Voice for Housing, has chosen the occasion of its 40th Annual Housing Person of the Year Gala to focus the attention of the housing world on veterans’ housing by honoring organizations that help meet that need. In keeping with this year’s Gala theme, “Honoring America’s Heroes,” the 2012 honorees are:
- The Home Depot Foundation, along with its partners Operation Homefront and Volunteers of America
- The collaboration between U.S. VETS and Cloudbreak Communities
Read full profiles on the 2012 honorees
In addition to hundreds of leaders in the housing industry, Gala attendees will include veteran heroes, military leadership and members of Congress gathered to present the leaders of NHC’s honoree organizations with the awards as Housing Persons of the Year. Accepting are: Kelly Caffarelli of The Home Depot Foundation, Jim Knotts of Operation Homefront, Michael King of Volunteers of America, Stephen Peck of U.S. VETS and Tim Cantwell of Cloudbreak Communities.
“These five organizations exemplify the partnerships that help meet the pressing need for housing and residential services that so many returning and at-risk veterans need,” said Dan Nissenbaum, NHC Board Chair. “The challenges veterans face in terms of finances, employment prospects, and health require a solid foundation of safe, decent, affordable housing. To meet these needs and to honor the service they have rendered their country, it great to showcase our honorees as a model of how to move forward as an industry.”
Kimberly Jackson, executive director of the Wells Fargo Housing Foundation, and a co-chair of the event said that veterans need housing as much as they need jobs. “Of the more than 1.5 million veterans in the U.S. today, at least one in ten are paying more than half of their income for housing.”
For more information on veterans’ housing need including facts, sources and resources, see the fact sheet at www.nhc.org/veterans.
Jackson said the Wells Fargo Housing Foundation is offering a matching grant that will help raise funds for veterans. For more information on the matching grant and on the event, slated for June 21 at the historic National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. visit www.nhc.org/Gala.
