Author: Sheila Crowley
Year of DDRG Award: 1995
Grantee University: Virginia Commonwealth University
Dissertation Title: A Constructivist Inquiry of the Interpretation of Federal Housing Policy In and Among Three Entitlement Jurisdictions
Current Employment: President and Chief Executive Officer, National Low Income Housing Coalition
Research Subject Areas: Low-Income Housing Affordability, Federal Housing Policy
Biography:
Sheila Crowley is the president and chief executive officer of the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), where she heads a membership organization that is dedicated to achieving socially just public policy that ensures that people with the lowest incomes in the United States have access to affordable and decent homes. NLIHC leads the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF) campaign, which has been endorsed by more than 5,700 organizations across the country. The campaign achieved a major success in July 2008 when legislation was enacted to establish NHTF at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. At least 75 percent of NHTF dollars must be used to build or preserve rental housing that is affordable to the lowest income households in the United States. NLIHC has led an ad hoc coalition of national and Gulf Coast housing organizations to advocate on behalf of low-income people displaced by the 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita, to ensure that sufficient housing is rebuilt at affordable costs to allow the return of all displaced residents who wish to do so. Dr. Crowley is a member of the board of directors of the National Housing Trust, the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, Enterprise Community Partners, the Technical Assistance Collaborative, and the National Housing Conference. She has worked in staff, board, and consulting roles with organizations that focus on homeless services, family housing, AIDS housing, housing for people with disabilities, and senior housing. She is an adjunct faculty member for the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work and for George Mason University's Department of Social Work, teaching social policy, social justice, policy advocacy, and community and organizational practice. She was the founding director in 1979 of the YWCA Women’s Advocacy program in Richmond, the shelter and service program for battered women and their children. She is a founding member of Virginians Against Domestic Violence, the Greater Richmond Coalition for the Homeless, and the Richmond Better Housing Coalition. She is married to Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia. They have two daughters and five grandchildren.
Read all DDRG spotlight biographies
