Black Coalition for Housing outlines March summit and developers academy for single-family affordable housing

The Black Coalition for Housing told the Shelby County Racial Equity Ad Hoc Committee on Jan. 23 that it will host a Black Developers Housing Summit March 26–28 at the Renaissance Center and will launch a developers academy to scale single-family affordable housing production.

Rashida Jones, representing the Black Coalition for Housing, said the summit will combine public programming and private roundtables with municipal leaders, community stakeholders and lenders. "The black developers housing summit that is coming March 26 sixth to the 20 eighth of 20 25. That will be held at the Renaissance Center," Jones said.

The coalition plans a developer-academy cohort aimed at emerging single-family developers. Jones said the goal for the academy is to onboard 12 to 18 single-family units into the housing stock by the end of each cohort and to provide mentorship and a "day in the life of the developer" experience with national and local speakers.

The housing pillar also intends to offer a three-day training on community receiverships in June 2025, designed to provide legal and operational guidance for using receivership as a blight-elimination tool. The coalition said it is working with local attorneys, the University of Memphis clinic and the environmental court to build the training curriculum.

Jones said the coalition is also coordinating with the National Association of Counties (NACo) effort to explore activation of municipally owned land for affordable housing and is piloting developer shadowing to give emerging developers end-to-end exposure to planning and community engagement.

Committee members asked that event and marketing materials be centralized on the ad hoc website or a county-managed portal. No formal county vote was taken; committee members were asked to help publicize the summit and academy and to invite city council members and county commissioners to participate.