As practitioners in the industry, we can all too easily reduce our thoughts about housing to the practical machinations of our work. Decisions are often made to serve regulatory agencies and capital providers, and to find the cheapest and fastest path to completion. We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that our job is to create places that serve real-life human needs.

Finding success in deploying a collaborative strategy to combat the local housing crisis.

During the 2025 ULI Housing Opportunity Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, a pivotal discussion centered on innovative funding solutions to address homelessness. The “Homeless to Housed: Marrying the Money with the Deal” session, moderated by Fulton County Commissioner Dana Barrett, featured key leaders in affordable housing, including Shannon Nazworth, president and CEO of Ability Housing; Joy Horak-Brown, president and CEO of New Hope Housing; and Margot Besnard, an associate on the acquisitions team at Jonathan Rose Companies.

Launched in 2022 with the release of its foundational report, Homeless to Housed: The ULI Perspective, ULI’s Homeless to Housed (H2H) initiative aims to address the U.S. housing and homelessness crises through real estate–driven solutions that emphasize a new degree of affordability and necessary connections to supportive services. The early work reflected in the report brought to light the real estate development community’s ability to deploy expertise and resources in addressing homelessness in the communities where ULI members live and work.

Multifamily experts gathered at the University of Southern California to highlight where denser construction is creating affordability.

With insights and research from a ULI Technical Advisory Panel and ULI’s Terwilliger Center, the Austin Housing Conservancy fund, a revolutionary approach to preserving workforce housing, was born. Now known as the Texas Housing Conservancy, the fund became the nation’s first to combine a nonprofit investment manager, Affordable Central Texas, with an open-end private equity fund.

A recent announcement from the Atlanta city government has once again sparked conversation around the redevelopment of a once-vibrant mall in Atlanta’s historic West End neighborhood.

The ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing has announced two winners for this year’s Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award, as well as two winners for the Terwilliger Center Award for Innovation in Attainable Housing.

Making infill development easier, adding a state role to local land-use controls, and connecting housing with transit were some of the top trends in housing policy that emerged on May 9 at the 2024 ULI/Charles H. Shaw Forum on Urban Community Issues. The forum topic, “State and Local Innovations to Expand Housing Opportunities,” reflected something that many communities around the United States are grappling with: dire housing shortages.

The ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing has announced three finalists for this year’s Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award and eight finalists for the Terwilliger Center Award for Innovation in Attainable Housing.