Housing, Capital & Community | Asheville Downtown Association Member Mixer
Description
Join the Asheville Downtown Association for our Q3 Member Mixer!
Housing, Capital & Community: A Conversation on Affordability and Opportunity
What does it actually take to move the needle on housing affordability and homelessness?
Join Beth Silverman, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Lotus Campaign — a nonprofit organization that works to unlock stable housing for people experiencing homelessness by bringing together the real estate and social service sectors, and AJ Jackson of LEO Impact Capital, who brings an impact investor's lens to building more equitable communities. Together they offer a rare combination of on-the-ground housing work and capital investment, and a shared belief that solving housing requires both.
In this session, Beth and AJ will draw on their own work and collaboration across North Carolina to share practical lessons on how housing affordability and homelessness are deeply connected — and what it looks like when the right people and resources come together to address both.
The session opens with a housing trivia game, moves through real-world lessons and best practices, and closes with open Q&A. Come ready to engage!
Lineup
Beth Silverman
LOTUS CAMPAIGN Executive Director Lotus Campaign’s founders and advisers are experts in private-sector real estate, urban planning, community development, finance, sustainability, homelessness, and affordable housing. Together with real estate developers, landlords, service providers, and philanthropists, we have formed a partnership of unexpected allies to solve the supposedly “unsolvable” epidemic of homelessness. Beth Silverman is the Executive Director and one of the four cofounders of Lotus Campaign and responsible for the strategic vision and impact of the organization. She is a senior practitioner and thought leader at the intersections of social impact, urban planning, real estate development and public policy. Beth’s career includes leadership roles in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors focused on building livable, equitable and resilient communities. Prior to Lotus, she served as Vice President of Advisory Services at the Urban Land Institute designing technical assistance programs that addressed a range of challenges from equitable urban redevelopment to planning for resilience. She also served as an Assistant Vice President with the NYC Economic Development Corporation during Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure, managing a portfolio of projects that created mixed-income housing, including affordable housing, cultural assets, and high-quality public space. Beth holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland and a graduate degree in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. When not working, Beth can usually be found outside running, biking, surfing, and hiking, and generally encouraging friends and family to enjoy the great outdoors with as much unabashed enthusiasm as she does.
AJ Jackson
LEO IMPACT CAPITAL President Brian Allan Jackson (AJ) is President of LEO Impact Capital. He was previously Head of Social Impact Investing at JBG SMITH, where he led the formation of the Impact Pool, an investment platform that was named the Best ESG Investment Fund: Real Estate by ESG Investing. Prior to joining JBG SMITH, AJ spent fifteen years in real estate development and investment, leading more than one billion dollars of double- and triple-bottom line urban infill real estate development, including projects that received ULI’s Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award. Earlier in his career, AJ served as Chief of Staff to the Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). AJ serves on the Affordable Housing Advisory Council for Fannie Mae, the Executive Committee of Up For Growth Action, the Workforce Housing Committee for the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), and the Affordable/Workforce Housing Product Council of the Urban Land Institute (ULI). AJ earned a B.A. with honors from the University of Alabama and an M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business School.
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