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Community Forums: April
2005: Anita Miller Biography |
Creating a Vision of Comprehensive Community
Development
April 11, 2005
Anita Miller’s career
combines service in the not-for-profit world, philanthropy, the federal
government, business and the corporate sector.
Ms. Miller is widely recognized for her contribution to the renaissance
of the South Bronx as the Program Director for the Comprehensive
Community Revitalization Program (CCRP). Designed by Ms. Miller and
managed by her until its conclusion in mid 1998, the seven year CCRP
demonstration in comprehensive community building was initiated by the
Surdna Foundation. Its goal was to build the capacity of Community
Development Corporations (CDCs) in the South Bronx to lead efforts aimed
at rebuilding the economic, social and human service infrastructures of
deteriorated neighborhoods where the organizations had developed
thousands of affordable housing units. The Program garnered some $10
million in support from 20 foundations and corporations and leveraged
well over $80 million in private and public sector financing for CDC
initiatives. These range from primary health care practices to Headstart
and Jobs Centers, as well as open space and economic development
projects.
Based on her CCRP experience, Ms. Miller has been asked to serve as an
advisor/coach/evaluator to a number of large-scale community development
programs beyond the borders of New York City. These include the Pew
Charitable Trusts comprehensive initiative in four Philadelphia
neighborhoods; LISC Chicago’s New Communities Initiative and its
successor, the 16 neighborhood New Communities Program; the Danforth
Foundation multi neighborhood program in St. Louis; Annie E. Casey’s
Making Connections Program; LISC Milwaukee’s Washington Park Partners
comprehensive effort, and McKinsey and Company whose client was the
Chagnon Foundation in Quebec, Canada.
She is also now completing work on a book for the community development
field that extracts lessons from her experience in designing CCRP and
operating the intermediary in the style of a venture capitalist. The
Surdna and Annie E. Casey Foundations are supporters of this work.
Ms. Miller was a member of the team that began the national LISC
organization in l981, serving as the Program Director for both the South
Bronx and LISC nationally. Here, she is best known for the Charlotte
Gardens development that turned a vast Bronx wasteland visited by two
presidents into a model subdivision of 89 single family homes. The
boldness and the success of this project triggered national and
international attention, turning it into a model for stimulating the
rebirth and economic integration of urban areas across the country.
Policy oriented community development initiatives were also represented
in her portfolio at the Ford Foundation during her seven year tenure
there as a senior program officer. The Neighborhood Reinvestment
Corporation, parent to Neighborhood Housing Services
and its secondary market program, the tenant management of public
housing and the initial test of the reverse mortgage were all included.
Ms. Miller also served in the Carter administration where her
presidential appointment to a federal financial regulatory agency was a
first for a woman. She used her positions as Member and then Chairman of
the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in Washington D.C. to address
discriminatory lending practices as they affected both individuals and
whole communities, and to require that the Federal Home Loan Bank system
create incentives for financial institutions to become partners in local
revitalization efforts.
Ms. Miller has also served as a member of numerous national and local
commissions and corporate and nonprofit boards of directors - all
concerned with matters related to housing, housing finance and the
renewal of urban communities.
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