Having built and defined a path for many communities I know that listening to and interpreting the needs of people creates opportunities for residents and positive outcomes for neighborhoods. The foundation of improving and empowering a community is to recognize this with understanding and sensitivity to history and legacy. Planning is a fluid concept that never stops – planning ahead to take care of people who are aging, young people who need a start in life and everything in between.

As communities expanded and contracted people were able to establish themselves and move forward with their families. If you tear up the very fabric and very basis of a community – single family homes where people have built up equity and created a path to intergenerational wealth -you begin to destroy the community. Then, land speculators come in, acquire property, and flip it. In order to create a level playing field and pursue a true agenda of social justice you have to have the ability to meet people where they are. That is to empower them to use the equity built up in the properties their parents acquired after WWII and to make sure that equity remains in the community and is not lost to speculators or predators.