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Advocate For Smart Housing

Diane Randall Leader in move for supportive and affordable homes

The Hartford Courant

November 27, 2010

The postwar push to the suburbs, among other factors, left Connecticut with a housing imbalance — large houses on large lots in the suburbs but not enough affordable housing for young workers or supportive housing for the homeless, most of whom were in cities.

No one has pushed harder to correct these problems than Diane Randall, executive director of The Partnership for Strong Communities. Ms. Randall and her organization have spearheaded the visionary Reaching Home campaign, which is creating 10,000 new units of supportive housing to end long-term homelessness in the state.

She has also been a leader of HOMEConnecticut, an innovative means of creating affordable housing, embraced by more than 50 towns thus far. In addition, she has turned the Lyceum Resource and Conference Center, a beautifully restored 19th-century building in Hartford that is the partnership's headquarters, into a statewide center for meetings on housing and other public policy issues.

Ms. Randall will step down at the end of the year to become executive secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, an ecumenical lobby for peace, equality and social justice. She has been an outstanding advocate for the homeless and the kind of sound housing policy that will help the state's economy. We wish her well.