Bending the Arc

In this episode we talk with Salin Geevarghese, President & CEO of SGG Insight and Founding Director of the Mixed-Income Strategic Alliance. Salin served for most of the two terms of the Obama Administration as a senior leader in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. His perspective on promoting comprehensive community change is particularly interesting given his wide-ranging professional experience across the corporate, philanthropic and public sectors. We recorded this conversation as the Biden-Harris transition team is deep into its preparations to take office, so Salin’s perspectives on lessons learned from the Obama Administration’s efforts to advance place-based strategies are particularly timely. We discuss his lessons learned about advancing place-based efforts in a more cross-silo, cross-sector and cross-jurisdictional way. We also touch on his perspectives, as an Indian-American, about advancing racial equity in the U.S., given how this topic can often be framed as a Black-White issue. National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities What Works to Promote Inclusive, Equitable Communities Volume Website Salin Geevarghese.2020. Reflections on the Role of the Federal Government in Promoting Greater Urban Equity and Inclusion. Salin Geevarghese.2020. Washington Post. How I found my identity as an Indian American in a Black and White country.

In this episode we talk with Dr. Clinton Boyd, Jr., a Postdoctoral Associate at the Samuel Dubois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. Dr. Boyd is a rising young scholar who is building an expertise on the subject of black fathers. In our conversation we touch on a wide range of topics including our personal journeys as Black fathers, the undervaluing of Black men in general versus the idolizing of Black male athletes and entertainers, and what Clinton has learned from his research, including the Dads2Kids home visiting project. Clinton and Dr. Deirdre Oakley of Georgia State University co-authored an essay for the What Works volume on the role of Black fathers in mixed-income communities. National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities What Works to Promote Inclusive, Equitable Communities Volume Website Clinton Boyd, Jr. and Deirdre Oakley.2020. Untapped Assets: Developing a Strategy to Empower Black Fathers in Mixed-Income Communities

In this episode we talk with Hans Buder, founder of the Moving to Opportunity Fund, an innovative social investment fund with a focus on changing the lives of young children by helping their families move to neighborhoods with high-performing schools. Hans has been an elementary school teacher with Teach for America, an investment banker, and has worked for a large affordable housing developer. The MTO Fund has a double bottom line mission of putting kids from low-income households on a path to college and delivering market-rate returns for mainstream investors. Hans’ vision is for the Fund to ultimately impact thousands of low-income families without any government financing. The Fund recently purchased its pilot inclusionary property in Dallas. National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities What Works to Promote Inclusive, Equitable Communities Volume Website Hans Buder.2019. The MTO Fund: Harnessing the Market to Promote Opportunity and Inclusion

In this episode we talk with Ben Metcalf, former senior official at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development, and now Managing Director at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California Berkeley. In his essay entitled “California For All: How State Action Can Foster Inclusive Mixed-Income Communities,” Metcalf wrote about how he and his team worked with Governors Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom to pass legislation and create programs to reduce barriers to creating affordable housing in high resource communities. In this conversation we hear about the innovations implemented on his watch and his lessons learned. National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities What Works to Promote Inclusive, Equitable Communities Volume Website Ben Metcalf. 2019. California For All: How State Action Can Foster Inclusive Mixed-Income Communities

In the first episode of Bending The Arc we kick things off with a conversation with Dr. Amy Khare, the Research Director at the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities. We explore the challenges and opportunities of creating more inclusive and equitable neighborhoods. We review some of the insights and ideas from the volume of essays on mixed-income communities we have co-edited together. National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities What Works to Promote Inclusive, Equitable Communities Volume Website Amy Khare and Mark Joseph. 2019. Prioritizing Inclusion and Equity in the Next Generation of Mixed-Income Communities

Bending The Arc explores the everyday work of creating inclusive, equitable and racially just communities. This podcast spotlights bold thinking and action by creative, passionate, experienced thinkers and actors from cities and communities around the US and Canada.