Today we’d like to introduce you to Eleanor White.
Eleanor, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Following my graduation from Harvard/Radcliffe in 1967, I arrived with my new husband to Washington, DC (our home for the next 2 years) to find that the only entity that would hire me without my passing a typing test was the Federal Government. Since I had grown up in the first urban renewal project in the country (on the South Side of Chicago), the Federal Housing Administration seemed to be a good fit. The next year, FHA was folded into the new US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
We moved back to Boston in 1969, where I worked briefly for the MA Department of Community Affairs, now the Department of Housing and Community Development. In 1970, HUD opened a new Regional and Area Office in Boston and asked me to return, where I met and began working for Marvin Siflinger, who became my boss, mentor, and later business partner. I stayed with HUD until 1983, administering the full range of Federal multifamily housing programs in Massachusetts, and then moved with Marvin Siflinger to the MA Housing Finance Agency (now MassHousing).
Marvin was Executive Director and I was initially Chief of Operations and then Deputy Director. We stayed at MassHousing until early 1995, growing the Agency substantially and initiating many programs of housing financing, security, social services, and equal opportunity. We were particularly proud of our efforts to assist in revitalizing the old Columbia Point housing project into the new Harbor Point, and the financing and rehabilitation of 2000 units of HUD foreclosed rental housing in Roxbury and Dorchester–called the Granite Properties–addressing issues of crime, alcoholism and substance abuse in cooperation with neighborhood residents, other agencies, and the City of Boston.
Moving on from MHFA in 1995, we founded Housing Partners, Inc. with a third partner, Ned Epstein (Ned left the firm in 2004) and have managed the firm to the present.
Along the way, I have been pleased to serve on many nonprofit boards ranging from Citizens Housing and Planning Association to the MA Association of Mental Health, generally in a leadership capacity.
In 1975, I earned a Master’s in Public Administration from Northeastern University and in 1978-79 I was honored to be selected as a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
My family grew over the years to include my wonderful husband of now 50 years, Barry White– a long-time attorney and U.S. Ambassador to Norway from 2009-2013– and three incredible sons, at this writing now 41, 35, and 29. All are happy, productive, and working toward a better world–our greatest accomplishments! The next generation includes, so far, two small granddaughters.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has been a smoother road than I probably deserved!
Although I was one of the first professional women in my field, I had wonderful supervisors and mentors and never felt real discrimination. I earned my graduate degree while I was working full-time (and partially reimbursed by HUD), and I was lucky to be working for the Federal Government and a Quasi-public entity when I had my sons, so that I benefited from generous maternity leave policies.
The struggles mostly revolved around difficult public policy issues and the need for public subsidies to make it possible to produce affordable housing in an expensive housing market where very little land is zoned as-of-right for multifamily housing.
Again, I have been lucky to have on the other side of the table–in the Congress, the MA legislature, at HUD and in the MA administration–people who genuinely wanted to do the right thing for people in need and who have worked collaboratively to make scarce public resources go a long way.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Housing Partners, Inc. – what should we know?
Housing Partners, Inc. is an affordable housing consulting firm, owned by Marvin Siflinger and myself and with the significant participation of Charles Eisenberg. We advise developers (both nonprofit and for-profit), cities and towns, housing authorities, universities, foundations, and others who are interested in developing or rehabilitating mixed-income housing or in developing new housing policies.
We have worked throughout the US, but tend now to focus on New England. We typically are retained by a developer when he/she finds a piece of land or a building and first decides to do affordable housing and then work with them through the planning, development and construction period.
We have also done extensive work on zoning policy with Ted Carman of Concord Square Planning and Development and Barry Bluestone of Northeastern University, leading to the passage of the Chapter 40R statute; and on a new method of financing, with the same partners, leading to the passage of the Workforce Housing Trust Fund.
We are most proud of the way that we work well with clients, other supporting professionals, local/state/federal officials, and residents to solve problems and generate feasible solutions. We are patient through the multi-year process of developing and applying for funding for affordable housing. And we try to keep a sense of humor along the way!
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Many more people deserve credit than I could ever name here–no one ever does this kind of complicated work alone!
First, of course, would be Marvin Siflinger, who I have worked with now for 47 years! He was a wonderful mentor, teacher, and boss who became just as wonderful a co-chief executive and then business partner.
Charles Eisenberg has played a major role in the success of Housing Partners, Inc., joining the firm in 2004. A Harvard MBA, with as long a career in affordable housing as Marvin and me, he has proven to be extraordinarily gifted in the intricacies of the very difficult work of cobbling together resources to make affordable housing developments a reality, and brings creativity to the difficult job of solving multiple development problems.
Ted Carman and Barry Bluestone, our partners on the policy front, have taught me a huge amount about rigorous policy analysis and how to present that to a non-expert audience.
Others who have been major supports: MA Senator Harriette Chandler, MA Rep. Kevin Honan, MA Rep. Antonio Cabral and many, many others in the legislature. Our clients, who I will not name individually, who have had confidence in us and have followed our advice. Colleagues (architects. lawyers, management companies and others), without whom no real estate deal would ever see the light of day.
Contact Info:
- Address: Housing Partners, Inc.
142 Galen Street, Suite B
Watertown, MA 02472 - Website: www.housingpartnersinc.com
- Phone: 617-924-7240
- Email: ewhite@housingpartnersinc.com
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