International Housing Exchange

Since 2003, the Housing Partnership Network has sponsored historic leadership exchanges among the CEOs of forty five top housing nonprofits in the United States, England and Canada.  Bilateral conferences among practitioners were held in London (2003, 2007) and Washington, DC (2006) and were expanded to a trilateral exchange involving major Canadian nonprofits in Toronto (2009). Through this Exchange, we have relationships with practitioners and policy-makers from other countries throughout Europe.  The international initiative – now formalized with a steering committee comprised of three representatives from each country – recently held a meeting in Berlin that focused on energy efficient building, retrofitting and operations.

Practice

• Working groups have been established to share best practices and innovation in key areas such as green technologies, performance benchmarking, resident and customer services, housing and care for the elderly, business transformation and social enterprise. A comparative analysis of the business practices of top nonprofits from the US and England that underscores the leading role of the Network’s members was recently completed by the Affordable Housing Institute.  To learn more please contact Manuel Muelle.

Partnerships

• In addition to knowledge sharing, business collaboration is a key goal for the exchange.  The US and Canadian participants are working together to create a joint North American platform for group purchasing of building materials and energy retrofitting equipment through Housing Partnership DIRECT.  Six British nonprofits with housing portfolios exceeding 100,000 apartments are actively exploring an affiliation with the Housing Partnership Insurance Exchange.

Policy

• Through our international collaboration nonprofit leaders and policy makers in the US and the UK have learned more about the respective housing systems of the two nations. The 2007 conference in Washington, DC – which involved the principal governmental leaders from England that oversee housing policy – also featured a meeting on Capitol Hill with Congressional leaders and key staff.  These discussions have stimulated support in Washington for the Network’s policy agenda for impact investing in high-performing nonprofits.