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The City of Duluth Chosen to Participate in NLC Mayors’ Institute on Affordable Housing and Health

[Duluth, MN] Mayor Emily Larson and the City of Duluth will participate in an intensive, National League of Cities’ (NLC) problem-solving session on affordable housing and health. The peer-to-peer learning session will include dialogue and discussion with six participating teams and leading experts that will help strengthen efforts by local officials and community partners to develop and/or augment effective responses and solutions.

“I am incredibly honored to have been selected to participate in the NLC Mayors’ Institute on Affordable Housing and Health,” stated Mayor Emily Larson. “Affordable housing is a top priority of mine, and of the community, and I know that this issue affects communities across the country. I am excited to dive in and learn from other cities about how they approach solutions to these complex problems, as well as share our local successes in creating and sustaining affordable housing in Duluth.”

Through the Mayor’s Institute, and partnering with One Roof Community Housing and Duluth’s Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), Duluth will seek to establish new programmatic actions for implementation, and develop a strategy regarding how to best prioritize resources for new housing programs to benefit the City’s residents and improve citywide health outcomes.

The Mayors’ Institute on Affordable Housing and Health: Advancing City-Level Strategies to Generate Sustainable Solutions will take place April 2-4 in Detroit.

Sponsored by NLC in partnership with NeighborWorks America, the Mayors’ Institute on Affordable Housing and Health: Advancing City-Level Strategies to Generate Sustainable Solutions brings local leaders together for a solutions-oriented, peer-to-peer learning and capacity building experience exploring ways cities can advance affordable housing strategies that ultimately improve health outcomes.

As the role of housing as a determinant of success in life — affecting health, access to education, and the opportunity for upward mobility — becomes better understood, cities face the daunting task of eliminating the affordable-and-healthy housing shortfall. The challenge for city leaders is to ensure that city residents can afford a safe and healthy place to live, one that enables them to work, support and protect their families, and ultimately thrive and reach their full potential.

NLC’s well-established Mayors’ Institute model stimulates and supports city-level progress by fostering a rich exchange of ideas among mayors, city staff, community partners, prominent researchers, practitioners, and other national experts.

While the primary focus is on supporting mayors in advancing their local efforts, lessons emerging from the Mayors’ Institute will also inform future work to promote a culture of health in communities throughout the nation, highlighting the potential of cross-agency, multisector approaches to address the most difficult and pressing health challenges.

Mayors will be joined by leaders and experts from some of the nation’s leading housing and health organizations and philanthropic foundations to hear from them about innovations they are supporting.

In addition to the City of Duluth, the five other cities attending the Mayors’ Institute include: Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Detroit; Lawrence, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; and Vancouver, Washington.

Local NeighborWorks America organizations joining cities at the Mayors’ Institute include: One Neighborhood Development and West Elmwood CDC of Providence; One Roof of Duluth; REACH CDC of Vancouver; Lawrence CommunityWorks of Lawrence; and MidCity Redevelopment of Baton Rouge.

For more on Affordable Housing and Health please see NLC’s new backgrounder, Affordable Housing & Health: City Roles and Strategies for Progress.

Local Contact

Keith Hamre

Director of Planning and Economic Development

(218) 730-5297

khamre@duluthmn.gov

NLC Contact:

Todd Allen Wilson

(202) 626-3123

wilson@nlc.org

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The National League of Cities is dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. NLC is a resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and villages, representing more than 218 million Americans. The Institute for Youth, Education, and Families, a special entity within the National League of Cities, helps municipal leaders take action on behalf of the children, youth, and families in their communities.

About NeighborWorks America
For 40 years, Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp., a national, nonpartisan nonprofit known as NeighborWorks America, has strived to make every community a place of opportunity. Our network of excellence includes more than 245 members in every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. NeighborWorks America offers grant funding, peer-exchange, technical assistance, evaluation tools and access to training, as the nation's leading trainer of housing and community development professionals. NeighborWorks network organizations provide residents in their communities with affordable homes, owned and rented; financial counseling and coaching; community building through resident engagement; and collaboration in the areas of health, employment and education. In the last five years, our organizations have generated more than $34 billion in investment across the country.