John Harney

Served to inform the non-profits of the Coalition of developments in the county regarding permanent affordable housing. This helped to build bridges between the rapid rehousing and supportive work done by the Salvation Army, St Matthews House, Red Cross, Wounded Warriors and others, which led to more permanent homes for residents. The goal was to solve immediate issues, then help create stable and safe housing.

Worked collaboratively to develop improved policy for the County to help solve the lack of affordable homes. This included understanding of zoning, relevant state and county laws, and funding from county, state, and federal sources. At the beginning of this work almost all of the homes in the county were single family. We worked together to build acceptance for multifamily homes to support families, veterans, and seniors as an important part of the community. Part of this work was to make residents feel safer when affordable homes were built in their neighborhoods.

Represented Habitat for Humanity to the public and the county. This work helped to build public acceptance for the need to support safe and affordable homes for residents. This interface between Habitat and the county helped to speed up implementation of sound policy and resulted in improvement of the total stock of purchased homes for working members of the community.