When she needs inspiration, Chrystel Cornelius looks to her grandmother. A member of the tribal nation of The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Mary Cornelius was the victim of assimilation, sent to boarding school to learn to be someone else's idea of "American."But after she graduated, she became a founder of the American Indian Movement, a civil rights organization.

Leslie Reid was born into a family of two: It was her and her mother, alone in New York, in need of better prospects. Reid spent time in foster care while her mother went to find them a home. Her family grew exponentially when she rejoined her mother, who had found work in Boston with a community of social workers. They'd started an organization for homeless youth, Reid says, and they lived together and worked together, providing shelter and services. 

Julie Porter grew up as the youngest of nine children. Her older brothers and sisters were raised in a country farmhouse with no hot running water, but Porter was born in town, where the family moved when they bought a rambling house in McPherson, Kansas, for $11,000.
 

The residents who live in Lee House, a senior apartment building owned and operated by the Housing Assistance Program of Essex County (HAPEC), take care of each other. The building, an historic Port Henry hotel in Elizabethtown, New York, converted to affordable housing, has 25 residents who make sure their neighbors make it to doctor’s appointments or to the grocery store to pick up food or an extra container of wipes.

In a video released this week, Pandemic Response: Perspectives on Housing, national leaders in housing development provided the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development with an in-depth look on the way COVID-19 has affected residents – and on the effectiveness of pandemic response programs as they relate to housing. Staying housed during this time is recognized as a public health issue.

Susan M. Ifill has been NeighborWorks America's executive vice president and chief operating officer for just over a year now – and what a year it's been! She brought with her more than 35 years of nonprofit and private sector experience, most recently serving as CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City Inc., a NeighborWorks organization.

Sue Reynolds is retiring after 23 years in a job she initially didn’t know she wanted. She was working as a tax credit project consultant for Community HousingWorks, when the exiting director asked her if she'd serve in the position of interim director. Reynolds had never supervised more than one other person at the time when she said 'yes.'
 

Unprecedented. Difficult. Heartbreaking. The words that come up when people discuss 2020 are rarely positive. But as a pandemic and economic hardships spread across the United States, NeighborWorks network organizations moved quickly, created new partnerships, worked long hours and offered new services to help residents in their communities. As we begin a new calendar year, we asked a few leaders across the network to share some of their thoughts about the year we just completed, and about the year ahead.