Housing Funding and Asset Mapping
2025-11-17 09:45 - 15:30 (America/Detroit) | Van Buren Conference Center, 490 S Paw Paw St., Lawrence, Michigan, 49064, United States
Come learn about different housing funding opportunities! We will hear from MSHDA, MEDC, and Great Lakes Housing Services. The second part of the day will include an asset mapping workshop for our regional housing resources with the Office of Rural Prosperity.

Agenda
9:45-10:00 Welcome
10:00- 10:30 MSHDA Homeownership
10:30-11:00 MSHDA MI Neighborhood/Great Lakes Housing services
11:00-11:30 Michigan Economic Development Corporation
11:30-12:00 Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:30 Asset Mapping with the Office of Rural Prosperity

RSVP Here

To prepare for the second part of the day, please help us complete our Asset Mapping process with the Office of Rural Prosperity. This process will:

Identify areas of strength and capacity
Reveal service gaps and duplication
Inform funding decisions, policies and new initiatives

The survey will take 10-15 minutes to complete. Take The Survey Here!

The Housing TIF Guide: How Communities Can Establish Strong Housing TIF Policies
2026-02-26 10:30 - 12:00
The current affordable housing development landscape presents many challenges for new and experienced developers alike. Join CEDAM for a webinar series to discuss creative strategies and solutions aimed at tackling some of the barriers to development across Michigan. We’ll cover creating a clear Housing TIF policy in your community, building a strong workforce development pipeline, emerging construction options, and other ways developers can reduce costs through the development process to get your project across the finish line. This webinar series is for both municipal leaders and developers interested in bringing needed housing to their communities.
Join CEDAM for the first session in our Strategies & Solutions webinar series, The Housing TIF Guide: How Communities Can Establish Strong Housing TIF Policies. MSHDA’s Housing Tax Increment Financing (TIF) tool is one of Michigan’s newest resources that can support the construction, rehabilitation, and preservation of housing in your community. This tool is a new asset for communities who did not have access to TIF previously. The tool allows the developer to capture future increases in property tax revenue generated by the development to help pay for costs like infrastructure, site preparation, and more affordable housing units. Developers are increasingly going to the municipality in which they’re working to receive guidance on their housing priorities and the TIF terms in which they’d be willing to provide. Many municipalities, however, have yet to design and publish guidelines that both support their housing goals and balances a healthy budget.
CEDAM has engaged with developers, municipalities, and other partners to help communities understand why the tool is needed to get deals done, outlined considerations for creating their own policies, and provided a step-by-step guide to establishing their own policy. Join us to learn about the guide and how you can utilize it for your own community to support projects that meet the housing goals you are trying to achieve.

Housing Opportunity Conference
2026-03-16 00:00 - 2026-03-17 23:59 | Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, 700 Aliceanna St, Baltimore, MD, 21202, United States
Network with housing industry professionals in breakout sessions, social events, and tours.
Register Here

Source of Income and Fair Housing
2026-03-24 14:00 - 15:00
This training will go over Source of Income protections in Michigan. We will discuss what constitutes Source of Income discrimination as well as how typical supplementary income types intersect with these protections. Sometime will be given also to common subsidy classes, such as Rural 515 and LIHTC properties.
This training opportunity is through the Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan.
Register Here

Living Together by Design: Housing to Connect Generations
2026-04-10 13:00 - 17:00
This half-day event hosted by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies will explore cutting-edge intergenerational designs. Intergenerational housing and communities—places that purposefully house people of all ages—offer powerful ways to reduce social isolation, improve affordability, and strengthen access to supports. While intergenerational living is not a new idea, recent innovative models provide valuable insights into housing designs and policies that build community, foster autonomy and interpersonal connections, and address affordability. This half-day event will bring together leaders from architecture, planning, homebuilding, environmental gerontology, public health, and related fields to explore cutting-edge intergenerational designs—from flexible homes that adapt to the needs of multigenerational families to larger communities that foster daily interactions and shared support. This half-day event will explore how thoughtful design, policy, and programming can shape more inclusive, resilient, and connected places to live.
Agenda
1:00 pm — Welcome
Chris Herbert, Managing Director, JCHS
1:05 pm — Overview: The Scale and Scaling of Intergenerational Living
Jennifer Molinsky, Director, Housing an Aging Society Program, JCHS
1:30 pm — Panel 1
Sharing a Home: The Multigenerational Household
Donna Butts, Senior Fellow and former Executive Director, Generations United
Noelle Marcus, Founder and CEO, Nesterly
Natasha Pilkauskas, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan
Jennifer Molinsky, Director, Housing an Aging Society Program, JCHS (moderator)
2:30 pm — Break
2:45 pm — Panel 2
Creating Community: Mutual Support in Intentional Intergenerational Housing
Jonathan Evans, Principal, MASS Design Group
Jenny French, Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture, Harvard GSD; Partner, French 2D
Wandy Pascoal, Program Manager, Housing and Innovation Awards, Boston Society for Architecture
Rafi Segal, Professor of Architecture and Urbanism, MIT; Founder, RSA+U
James Stockard, Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design Curator Loeb Fellowship, Harvard GSD (moderator)
3:45 pm — Panel 3
Welcoming All Ages: Intergenerational Neighborhoods and Cities
Andrea Burns, Director, Age-Friendly Boston
Patricia Cafferky, Deputy Chief of Operations, Capital Investment, Office of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu
Will Cohen, Zoning Reform Planner, City of Boston Planning Department
Kristin McSwain, Chief of Policy and Research, Office of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu
Tim Love, Lecturer and Senior Fellow in Real Estate and Urban Planning, Harvard GSD; Founding Principal, Utile (moderator)
4:45 pm — From Ideas to Action: Next Steps for Intergenerational Housing
Jenny French, Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture, Harvard GSD; Partner, French 2D
Tim Love, Lecturer and Senior Fellow in Real Estate and Urban Planning, Harvard GSD; Founding Principal, Utile
Jennifer Molinsky, Director, Housing an Aging Society Program, JCHS
Join the Livestream

Retooling Redevelopment Authorities to Create Social Housing
2026-04-14 16:00 - 18:00
Retooling Redevelopment Authorities to Create Social Housing in Massachusetts
Cosponsored by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, and the Cambridge Community Foundation.
This is a hybrid event. Please select in person or livestream attendance during ticket selection.
Redevelopment authorities were created in the mid-20th century to carry out urban renewal projects, made possible through federal and state programs. Although these programs ended or were scaled back due to often controversial projects, in Massachusetts redevelopment authorities still exist and retain significant powers, including eminent domain. This has led housing advocates and policymakers to explore whether redevelopment authorities might be uniquely positioned to help cities and towns promote new social housing—mixed-income developments in which the public sector holds a lasting ownership stake.
Susanne Schindler and Becca Heilman will present the findings of a new Joint Center for Housing Studies report, which examines how redevelopment authorities in Massachusetts might support social housing. The research for the report was funded by the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, the Cambridge Community Foundation, and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, which examines how redevelopment authorities in Massachusetts might support social housing. A panel of practitioners and officials, moderated by Chris Herbert, will discuss the report’s findings and its implications for communities across the state.
Join the livestream!

Real Estate Development Core Boot Camp
2026-04-27 00:00 - 2026-05-01 23:59
Core Boot Camp | Muskegon | April 27–May 1, 2026
Boot Camp Overview
CEDAM’s Real Estate Development Boot Camp is a multi-part training program designed to give you the tools needed to develop affordable housing in your community. From rising construction costs to new funding sources, our training curriculum is updated each year to provide context around the current real estate development landscape in Michigan. We bring in experienced speakers from across the state and country to discuss practical applications of this work and help you create important connections.
We welcome anyone to register for this training who is interested in understanding the development process; however, the training curriculum is geared toward helping participants move their community-focused real estate development projects forward. We encourage all participants to bring a potential project (whether it be a potential site or building, or even just an idea) to the training.
Our target audience is:

Community members who are interested in revitalizing their community through small-scale development projects
Nonprofit housing development staff who may be seeking to actualize a range of housing and community development projects utilizing LIHTC or other sources

Our secondary target audience is:

City staff officials, community partners, foundations, or others who may be involved in the development process in some capacity

Whether you are new to the field or need a refresher on the basics, this training is for you! Those who join the training and do not have a potential project will have the opportunity to collaborate with those who do when we apply our learning through a final project pitch to funders.
This is a fast-paced, hands-on training program. Because capacity is limited for the training and demand is high, registrants must commit to being active participants and be available to attend all of part 1 and part 2 (one track only) dates.
If you have any questions, please contact Sandy Pearson, CEDAM’s real estate development manager.
Register Here

The Cost-of-Living Crisis: Data-Driven Insights into Housing, Energy, and Essential Spending
2026-04-29 14:00 - 15:00
Economic uncertainty defines the current era for many U.S. households as they struggle with affordability and the challenge of stretching their budgets. The gap between rising costs and household resilience is especially large for families with lower incomes, as they face cost pressures relative to their income nearly three times greater than those of high-income earners. Understanding these disparities is an essential requirement for ensuring social equity and national stability.
This webinar brings together three expert perspectives to dissect the widening “affordability gap” through the lenses of consumer spending, housing policy, and energy costs. We will explore research that reveals how the expiration of pandemic-era supports and inflation has forced households with more limited economic resources to trade down on essentials while higher-income groups remain insulated. The discussion will also address the structural crisis in American housing, asking how we can realistically expand access to affordable homes. And finally, we will examine energy insecurity and the impacts of rising costs of utilities and transportation, highlighting how public perception and market shifts impact the distribution of modern infrastructure and affordability. Webinar participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of why the cost-of-living crisis is experienced so differently across the United States and what kinds of systemic steps are necessary to bridge the divide.
Sinem Hacioglu Hoke, Principal Economist, Federal Reserve Board
Sanya Carley, Vice Provost of Climate Science, Policy, and Action, Mark Alan Hughes Faculty Director, Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning, University of Pennsylvania
Gregg Colburn, Marsha & Jay Glazer Endowed University Professor, Associate Professor, University of Washington
Institute for Research on Poverty -Register Here

Disability and Race Discrimination Training
2026-04-30 15:00 - 17:00
Addressing race-based discrimination has been the driving force behind the beginnings of Fair Housing. Disability is consistently the most cited protected class in fair housing complaints. This training will cover these two topics in depth, including the historical underpinnings of Race and Disability as protected classes as well as how they shape fair housing today.

This training will be in-person at the Edison Neighborhood Association. There will be no virtual option.

Please RSVP Here

Edison Neighborhood Association | 816 Washington Ave, Kalamazoo, MI 49001

Building Michigan Communities Conference
2026-05-12 00:00 - 2026-05-13 23:59 | Lansing Center, 333 E Michigan Ave, Lansing, MI, 48933, United States
The BMCC is where industry leaders, innovators, and changemakers come together to shape the future of affordable housing and community development in Michigan. Get ready to join 1,200+ housing financiers, developers, public officials, asset managers, policymakers, and advocates for two days of powerful networking, cutting-edge insights, and game-changing ideas.
Benefits of attending:
Whether you’re a seasoned expert or new to the field, BMCC 2026 offers something for everyone. Don’t miss your chance to be part of our state’s largest gathering of housing and community development leaders, where you’ll:

Learn from the best in the industry and discover fresh perspectives that can help elevate your work.
Build your network with professionals across Michigan who share your passion for building stronger, more inclusive communities.
Get equipped with the tools, strategies, and partnerships you need to drive real change in your community.

We hope to see you May 12-13, 2026 at the Lansing Center!
Register Here

Small Town & Rural Development Conference
2026-06-01 00:00 - 2026-06-03 23:59 | Crystal Mountain Resort, 12500 Crystal Mountain Dr., Thompsonville, MI, 49683, United States
Join us at the stunning Crystal Mountain from June 1–3, 2026, for the premier statewide event dedicated to empowering Michigan’s rural communities. This conference remains the cornerstone for practitioners and advocates committed to strengthening the heart of our state and building a vibrant future.
Conference Highlights

Consumers Energy “Put Your Town on the Map” Pitch Competition: Kick off the conference Monday afternoon by witnessing innovative ideas and community-driven projects compete for funding.
Targeted Learning Tracks: Dive into specialized sessions covering Housing Solutions, Infrastructure & Energy, and Economic Resiliency.
Innovative Strategies: Explore forward-thinking topics such as leveraging Data & AI for Rural Success, securing Congressional Directed Spending, and implementing Food Waste Solutions.
Networking & Site Visits: Connect with peers during the Monday evening reception at Iron Fish Distillery and multiple plenary networking meals.
Wednesday Final Sessions: Wrap up the experience on Wednesday morning with focused blocks on International Talent Retention and Community Economic Transition.

Registration opens on March 16.

RHP Housing Summit
2026-06-12 09:30 - 15:30 | Van Buren Conference Center, 490 S Paw Paw St., Lawrence, Michigan, 49064, United States
This Housing Summit will focus on learning more about gap financing tools, shared equity housing models, and the State Housing Plan 2.0!
We will start the day with David DeVelder a Senior Leader at IFF. IFF is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that provides loans, consulting, and development support to mission-driven nonprofits throughout the Midwest. David has a plethora of experience working with non-profits to find housing solutions.
We will also have the privilege to welcome Jeff Washburne Partner with Burlington Associates who is working with or has worked with over 50 community land trusts nationally. He has a depth and breadth of experience in the field with a notable 20+ years at the City of Lakes Community Land Trust where he assisted over 490 low-income homeowners with over 375 homes in the trust. It is now the 3rd largest CLT nationally. Jeff will be breaking down all the ways to create shared equity in housing to create achievable workforce housing opportunities in our communities. The presentation will cover CLTs, deed restrictions, cooperative models and more.
We are thrilled to be helping the State with the launch of the Statewide Housing Plan 2.0! We will hear from Megan Spitz, Office of Housing Strategies Manager at MSHDA and the state consultant ICF. We will get updates on the process and engagement plans, as well as opportunities to participate and give feedback on changes. Come to get engaged and ensure Region J’s voice is represented in the State’s plan!
You can come for all or part of the day.
* We will be giving away a FREE MAP Housing Zoning Assessment for 2 lucky municipalities who attend the meeting in-person.
Requirements include a municipal staff contact. Client contacts will be responsible for: an initial one-hour conversation with MAP about housing, and receiving the assessment on behalf of the community.
Updated Agenda Times:
9:30-9:50: Welcome and RHP updates with Emily Petz
9:50-10:20: IFF with David DeVelder
10:20- 11:50: Shared Equity Models with Jeff Washburne
11:50-12:45: Taco Bar Lunch Break
12:45-3:30: State Housing Plan 2.0 with MSHDA and ICF + Feedback and Engagement

Fair Housing and the Violence Against Women Act
2026-06-25 14:00 - 15:00
Everyone has the right to live free from discrimination and to feel safe in their home. The Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, was written with this in mind. This training will examine the history of VAWA and discuss the expanded fair housing protections offered to those protected under VAWA. Additionally, we will explore other programs that may offer benefits to those most affected by VAWA, such as SNAP and WIC.
This is a remote event hosted on Zoom by the Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan.
Register Here

Disability and Race Discrimination
2026-07-30 14:00 - 15:00
Addressing race-based discrimination has been the driving force behind the beginnings of Fair Housing. Disability is consistently the most cited protected class in fair housing complaints. This training will cover these two topics in depth, including the historical underpinnings of Race and Disability as protected classes as well as how they shape fair housing today.
This is a remote event hosted on Zoom by the Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan.
Register Here

Real Estate Development Rural Boot Camp
2026-09-14 00:00 - 2026-09-18 23:59
Rural Boot Camp | Gaylord | September 14–18, 2026
Boot Camp Overview
CEDAM’s Real Estate Development Boot Camp is a multi-part training program designed to give you the tools needed to develop affordable housing in your community. From rising construction costs to new funding sources, our training curriculum is updated each year to provide context around the current real estate development landscape in Michigan. We bring in experienced speakers from across the state and country to discuss practical applications of this work and help you create important connections.
We welcome anyone to register for this training who is interested in understanding the development process; however, the training curriculum is geared toward helping participants move their community-focused real estate development projects forward. We encourage all participants to bring a potential project (whether it be a potential site or building, or even just an idea) to the training.
Our target audience is:

Community members who are interested in revitalizing their community through small-scale development projects
Nonprofit housing development staff who may be seeking to actualize a range of housing and community development projects utilizing LIHTC or other sources

Our secondary target audience is:

City staff officials, community partners, foundations, or others who may be involved in the development process in some capacity

Whether you are new to the field or need a refresher on the basics, this training is for you! Those who join the training and do not have a potential project will have the opportunity to collaborate with those who do when we apply our learning through a final project pitch to funders.
This is a fast-paced, hands-on training program. Because capacity is limited for the training and demand is high, registrants must commit to being active participants and be available to attend all of part 1 and part 2 (one track only) dates.
If you have any questions, please contact Sandy Pearson, CEDAM’s real estate development manager.
Register Here

Full Use, Full Enjoyment: a Reasonable Accommodation Practicum
2026-09-24 14:00 - 15:00
This training will cover general information regarding Reasonable Accommodations and Reasonable Modifications. Importantly, this training will also include a step-by-step walkthrough of what to expect at each phase of RA/RM requests, and best practices for appealing RA/RM denials (geared toward professionals)
This is a remote event hosted on Zoom by the Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan.
Register Here

The Midwest CLT Conference
2026-10-13 00:00 - 2026-10-15 23:59
The Midwest CLT Conference brings together leaders, innovators, and advocates from across the region to advance the mission of community land trusts (CLTs). This dynamic event offers a unique opportunity to exchange ideas, share best practices, and explore solutions for creating and preserving permanently affordable housing.
Whether you’re a seasoned CLT professional, a nonprofit developer, or a new organization exploring the CLT model, this conference will equip you with actionable insights and connections to drive meaningful impact. With engaging workshops, inspiring keynote speakers, and networking opportunities, the Midwest CLT Conference is a must-attend for anyone passionate about equitable and sustainable communities.
Get more information on the Midwest Community Land Trust Conference Here
