Overview
ANHD’s Fight Forward 2025 event series will provide four in-person spaces to have timely, thought-provoking conversations related to housing, community organizing, and small business, connect with others in the movement, and celebrate our collective power and resilience.
5/28 In Community: Navigating NYC’s Housing Crossroads
New York City’s housing landscape is at a critical juncture. From development to preservation, local actors are working to ensure that low-income New Yorkers have safe, stable, and affordable homes in their communities—despite growing challenges.
On May 28th, we held an in-person discussion on the current state of housing in NYC. We heard from Vincent Reina, a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning and the Founder and Faculty Director of the Housing Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania with a long history in housing work. Together, we explored the local dynamics shaping our neighborhoods, the barriers community groups and housing developers face, and the opportunities to strengthen housing justice efforts on the ground.
This timely event surfaced pressing issues and potential solutions in housing policy, development, and organizing—centering strategies that prioritize equity and community stability, and allowed policymakers, advocates, and practitioners to connect, learn, and build power together.
Event Details
Wednesday May 28
8:30-11:00am
CUNY Graduate Center
Kelly Skylight Room, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016
Breakfast was provided.
Speaker: Vincent Reina
Professor; Founder and Faculty Director of the Housing Initiative, University of Pennsylvania
Vincent Reina is a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment as Professor of Real Estate in the Wharton School of Business. Reina is the Founder and Faculty Director of the Housing Initiative at Penn and is currently a Stoneleigh Foundation Fellow and Editor in Chief of the peer-reviewed journal Housing Policy Debate. His research focuses on urban economics, housing policy, and community and economic development, and has been published in various peer-reviewed journals. This work has been recognized with several awards, including article of the year by the Journal of the American Planning Association and the Association of Public Policy and Management’s Best Dissertation Award. He was also given the Rising Scholar Award by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.
In 2022-2024 Reina served as the Senior Advisor for Housing and Urban Policy in the White House Domestic Policy Council, where he worked to address the nation’s housing affordability and supply challenges, affirmatively further fair housing, increase access to homeownership, and advance equitable development and community investment.
Reina was also previously a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, a Lincoln Institute for Land Policy Scholar, a Coro fellow, and worked at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
7/1 In Community: 15 Years of Building Organizer Power
On July 1st, we celebrated 15 years of empowering grassroots leaders and building community power across New York City!
Since 2009, our Center for Community Leadership (CCL) has trained and supported over 300 organizers to tackle the city’s most pressing issues, neighborhood by neighborhood.
We honored the achievements of this year’s Center for Community Leadership graduates, reflected on CCL’s impact, and recognized the continued solidarity that fuels our movement.
We celebrated the graduation of the current cohort and CCL’s 15th year and heard remarks by Cristina Jiménez Moreta, Ericka Stallings, and Brandon Kielbasa. Then we held a reception with food, drink, beats by DJ Sabine Blaizin (Oyasound), a rooftop space to gather with CCL alumni and other NYC organizers, a photobooth, and more!
Event Details
Tuesday, July 1
3:45-7:30pm
Manny Cantor Center
197 E Broadway, New York, NY 10002
Speakers
Cristina Jiménez Moreta
Community organizer; Author; Co-founder & former Executive Director of United We Dream
Cristina Jiménez Moreta is an award-winning community organizer, bestselling author, and a leading voice in movements for social justice. She is Co-Founder and former Executive Director of United We Dream (UWD), the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country. Cristina has led multiple national and local campaigns for immigrant justice, playing a leadership role in the campaign to win and implement the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA). A distinguished lecturer at the City University of New York, Jiménez was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and was named one of Time 100’s most influential people. Her USA Today bestselling debut memoir Dreaming of Home was published in May 2025. She came to the US from Ecuador in 1998 and grew up undocumented in Queens, New York.
Ericka Stallings
Co-Executive Director, Leadership Learning Community
As Ericka has shared, “My personal and professional journey has led me to seek freedom through collaboration, solidarity, and collective action.” Ericka is a core part of CCL’s history and development, having directed the program for over a decade as ANHD’s Deputy Director for Capacity Building and Strategic Initiatives. With love and a commitment to clarity and rigor, she shaped and stewarded the program while teaching, supporting, and amplifying the work of organizers throughout NYC.
Ericka is now the Co-Executive Director at Leadership Learning Community, creating spaces for innovations, practices, and systems that are grounded in collective liberation, centering leaders of color and those from historically excluded communities. Soon, she will be joining the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation as its Senior Director, serving in a grantmaking role and supporting the cultivation of their Exploring Leadership program.
Brandon Kielbasa
Director of Organizing and Policy, Cooper Square Committee
Brandon Kielbasa is a Tenant Organizer and Housing Advocate with a broad range of experience in community organizing and one-on-one casework. He works for the Cooper Square Committee in New York City’s Lower East Side as the Director of Organizing and Policy. Brandon has been with CSC for 18 years. He started as a Housing Specialist, doing tenant counseling and organizing. He has now been Organizing Director for 10 years as CSC has increased its commitment to community organizing, creating a 6 person organizing team.
Brandon was part of the organizing leadership which spearheaded a city-wide campaign, Stand for Tenant Safety, in partnership with several other housing groups, to create 13 new laws to improve the effectiveness of the NYC Dept. of Buildings in responding to health and safety issues at occupied buildings undergoing renovations. He has a BA in English and Psychology from Hunter College and is also currently a graduate student at the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy pursuing a Masters in Public Health with a concentration in Community Health.
Brandon sees himself as a social change practitioner and practices community organizing because he believes that it is essential for individuals and communities to be engaged in solving their own problems and for them to gain strength and knowledge by doing so.
9/16 In Community: Centering Small Businesses for Thriving Neighborhoods
Despite billions invested in making New York City “business-friendly,” the smallest businesses—especially those in LMI communities and owned by immigrants and people of color—face growing threats to survival. Uneven enforcement of fees and fines, rising commercial rents, unsafe streets, and inadequate sanitation all make it more difficult—and more expensive—for neighborhood businesses to stay open and thrive.
In response, ANHD and our members are reimagining what community development can look like—centering the smallest businesses, commercial tenants, and street vendors as key partners in building neighborhood power.
ANHD’s Citywide Merchant Organizing Project (CMOP) brings organizers across NYC neighborhoods together to learn to build a base, develop leaders, and coordinate across corridors to win structural change that center small businesses and lead to thriving neighborhoods.
On September 16th in the Bronx, join us for a conversation with merchant organizers and small business leaders driving change in commercial corridors. We’ll hear from this year’s CMOP cohort—organizers from Chhaya CDC, Street Vendor Project, and WHEDco—along with merchant leaders from the neighborhoods they organize in. Together, we’ll explore what it takes to organize in a system that favors big business and disinvestment—and how merchant organizing connects to housing justice, tenant organizing, and broader community and economic development strategies. We’ll also share a meal from a local Bronx restaurant supported in their community by WHEDco.
If you’re curious about merchant organizing, looking to enhance your base-building strategies, or seeking to connect small business advocacy to your housing and economic justice work, this event is for you.
Event Details
Tuesday, September 16
12:30-3:00pm
Bronx Music Hall
438 E 163rd St, Bronx, NY 10451
Registration coming soon!
Speakers
Jessica Taylor
National Director, Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women Initiative
Jessica is national director of One Million Black Women, the first-of-its-kind comprehensive
investment in Black women to help drive economic growth, leveraging Goldman Sachs’ commitment of $10 billion in direct investment capital and $100 million in philanthropic support to impact the lives of at least one million Black women by 2030. Prior to her current role, Jessica was national director of 10,000 Small Businesses, one of the firm’s signature philanthropic initiatives that helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses by providing education, support services and access to capital. Prior to joining the firm, Jessica was an executive director at the New York City Department of Small Business Services, where she led commercial revitalization and disaster recovery programs during Mayor Bloomberg’s administration.
Finale Event
Mark your calendar for October 8th at BRIC! This Fight Forward capstone event will bring us together to reflect on a year marked by challenge and change, and to look ahead with clarity, connection, and a shared commitment to building a more just and equitable New York City. This event will feature in-person networking, food, and conversation with ~150 community development leaders, neighborhood advocates, government allies, and financial sector partners from across the city; a special keynote speaker; and a panel conversation reflecting on the year’s momentum and lessons.
Event Details
Wednesday, October 8
BRIC
647 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Registration info to come!
Logistics
General
Individual tickets are available via Eventbrite, and group and sponsor packages are managed by connecting with Lauren Nye (lauren.n@anhd.org).
In-person COVID Protocols
In-person attendees are asked to be fully vaccinated and comply with all New York City and New York State guidelines at the time of the event. We support masks to protect vulnerable populations and will have masks on hand at all events. ANHD will also have hand sanitizer available.
Accessibility
All conference event spaces are fully accessible by wheelchair and are ADA compliant. If you have any questions or accommodation or service requests to fully participate with us, please contact Director of Operations Lauren Nye at lauren.n@anhd.org at least 15 days prior to the event.
Social Media and Hashtag
The official hashtag of this ANHD event series is #BuildCommunityPower.
Follow ANHD on Instagram and LinkedIn @ANHDnyc for up-to-date info and recaps!
Sponsors
