Recognizing April as Fair Housing Month, the City of Tallahassee, in partnership with the Big Bend Housing Partnership, will host our annual Housing Symposium on Thursday, April 27, 2023 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. at the AC Hotel, located at 801 S. Gadsden Street, Tallahassee, FL 32301. This free event will include four panel discussions with local and national leaders and subject matter experts as they tackle topics ranging from housing rights to preventing housing discrimination.

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) was designed to protect Americans from discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on color, race, national origin, and religion. The Act later extended to sex, disability, and family status. National Fair Housing Month in April increases efforts to end housing discrimination and raises awareness of fair housing rights. The month also commemorates the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.

2023 Big Bend Housing Agenda

7:30 to 9:00 a.m.
Registration and Morning Starter

9:00 a.m.
Welcome & Greetings
City of Tallahassee Leadership
Leon County Commissioner Leadership

9:20 a.m.
Conference Overview
Nicole Everett, Moderator

9:30 a.m.
Opening Session: “Strengthening Our Communities”

Moving in the Right Direction to Advance Fair and
Affordable Housing

Marvin Nesbitt, Senior Director, Community Development
Atlanta, Georgia

Shawn Duncan
DMin | Director of Training & Consulting
FCS | The Lupton Center
Atlanta, GA

11:15 a.m.
Session I: “What You Should Know about Homeowners and Renters Insurance”
Tasha Carter, Florida Insurance Consumer Advocate

12:30 p.m.
Lunch

1:30 p.m.
Session II: Financing Affordable Housing to Promote Equitable Lending”
Kody Glazer, Legal and Policy Director

2:45 p.m.
Session III: “The State of Housing in the Florida Big Bend Area"
Florida Housing Coalition

3:45 p.m.
Session IV: Advancing Housing Protections for Survivors of Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking - Panel Discussion

Kelly O’Rourke, Domestic Violence Council
Shan Pompey, Refuge House
Jennifer Dritt, Florida Council Against Sexual Assault

5:00 p.m.
Closing Remarks

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) was designed to protect Americans from discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on color, race, national origin, and religion. The Act later extended to sex, disability, and family status. National Fair Housing Month in April increases efforts to end housing discrimination and raises awareness of fair housing rights.

Moderator

Nicole Everett

Nicole Everett is a Conversationalist, Media Content Producer, Mental Health Advocate and Connector. For more than 20 years, Nicole worked in the affordable housing arena for a Tallahassee non-profit organization as well as across the state of Florida. She currently serves as a Behavioral Health Navigator with the local Health Department, where she assists individuals and groups with mental health and substance abuse resources.

A native of Miami, Florida, Nicole earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University (FAMU). She enjoys volunteering her time and talents to non-profit boards and community committees, such as Big Bend Habitat for Humanity, SHE Academy, Working Class Wednesday and the Soul of Southside Festival planning committee, to name a few. Supporting local individuals and organizations is very important to Nicole and she embodies the sentiment "we've got to support what we want to keep".

When she's not working and volunteering, Nicole loves hosting and producing her video talk show, Conversations With Nicole (CWN). Since 2016 CWN, has been connecting the community through conversations, with more than 200 pre-recorded shows cataloged. As a mental health advocate Nicole, conducts live virtual broadcasts on social media twice weekly with clinicians of color as her guest, in an effort to end the stigma and normalize dialogue around mental health and wellness in black and brown communities.

Presenters

Tasha Carter

Tasha Carter joined the Department of Financial Services in 2003 and previously served as the Director of the Division of Consumer Services for nearly 9 years where she led a team of more than 100 professionals who advocated and assisted more than 300,000 insurance consumers annually. In this role, Ms. Carter tirelessly advocated for Florida’s insurance consumers by engaging with the insurance industry, promoting education and working closely with Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis. Additionally, Ms. Carter also spearheaded the CFO’s outreach initiatives to promote financial education for all Floridians.

Ms. Carter currently serves as Florida’s Insurance Consumer Advocate (ICA). As the ICA, Ms. Carter is committed to using her 20 years of insurance experience to find consumer-focused policy solutions and ensure consumers’ interests are represented when insurance decisions are made. Ms. Carter’s professional experience includes 20 years of leadership, professional responsibility and broad experience in regulation, consumer advocacy and education and outreach.

Shawn Duncan

Dr. Shawn Duncan is the Director of Training and Consulting for FCS | Focused Community Strategies. His research and professional work have focused on factors that lead to social change. He is a member of the Atlanta Mayor’s and Atlanta Public Schools’ research group on thriving neighborhoods. Dr. Duncan is also a part of the Purpose Built Communities’ Pacesetters task force that is working to define the key indicators of impact for place-based work. He also directs a nation-wide initiative funded by Lilly Endowment Inc that is building place-based, cross-sector coalitions to impact chronic material poverty. He has been a pastor, coach, professor, nonprofit founder, and consultant.

Jennifer L. Dritt

Jennifer L. Dritt, LCSW, is the Executive Director of the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence, a position she has held for more than nineteen years. She has been involved in the movement to end sexual violence for forty-four years, initially as an advocate and trauma therapist, and more recently as an administrator and policy maker. Ms. Dritt has served on the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and the Florida Network of Children’s Advocacy Centers. She received her M.S.W. from the Smith College School for Social Work, is licensed to practice independently in Florida, and provides consultation and expert witness services in sexual violence-related civil and criminal cases.

Kody Glazer

Kody Glazer is Legal and Policy Director of the Florida Housing Coalition with expertise in land use law, affordable housing planning and development, and policy implementation. Kody provides technical and legal assistance to local governments, community-based organizations, and policymakers on inclusionary housing policies, community land trusts, fair housing, land use, environmental law, and the law generally as it relates to housing. As Legal and Policy Director, he leads the Coalition's advocacy efforts at all levels of government, including as lead of the Sadowski Affiliates, and has expertise drafting state legislation and local housing ordinances and policies. Prior to joining the Coalition, Kody clerked for the National Fair Housing Alliance on issues related to fair housing and equitable opportunity. Kody graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Florida State University College of Law, where he was a member of the Florida State University Law Review and the Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law.

Emily Mitchem

Emily Mitchem is the Executive Director of Refuge House, the domestic and sexual violence center serving the eight county Big Bend area. She has served in this role since January 1, 2021. Prior to her role as Executive Director, she served as the Assistant Director for twelve years and was responsible for all programmatic activities, contract management, and quality assurance practices throughout all eight counties we serve. Before her time at Refuge House, she worked for several years with men who were adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse as an addictions counselor, and as a counselor for domestic violence, adult sexual assault and prostitution survivors within the Department of Corrections.

Marvin Nesbitt, Jr.

Marvin Nesbitt, Jr. has committed his entire career to facilitating positive outcomes and success for society’s most vulnerable and the communities in which they reside. Today, he serves as Sr. Director of Community Development with Focus Community Strategies (FCS), a place-based Community Development Corporation working in the Historic South Atlanta neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia. At FCS, Marvin is teams with a group of talented directors to lead the organization’s Neighborhood Engagement, Affordable Housing, and Economic Vitality efforts.

Prior to joining FSC, Marvin has worked as an independent consultant providing his skills in human services and community development to numerous nonprofit, and government agencies in the areas of planning, implementation and evaluation of service delivery systems, community engagement, and the development and writing of HUD Choice Neighborhood Grant People Strategies.

Additionally, Marvin has served in key leadership roles with organizations whose missions involved improving the quality of life for those impacted by lack of access to quality affordable housing and other mainstream services and resources necessary for success. He was the Director of Resident Wellness & Empowerment with the Virgin Islands Housing Authority (VIHA) overseeing the re-engineering of the agency’s Resident Services Department, VP of Development & Community Engagement with Atlanta Center for Self Sufficiency (ACSS) leading all agency fundraising and community engagement efforts, Senior Vice President & Chief Program Officer with Action Ministries, Inc. overseeing the agency’s Hunger, Housing and Education program operations, and had a successful 12-year career with the Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) where he oversaw the agency’s Human Development and Resident Engagement activities.

Marvin holds a Bachelors of Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a Masters of Social Work from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Originally from Spartanburg, SC, he has made Atlanta, Georgia his home.

Kelly O'Rourke

Kelly O'Rourke is a California transplant who has lived in Tallahassee since she came to FSU a few decades ago. She has degrees in Theater and Communications as well as a Masters in Social Work and Gerontology and a PhD ABD in Social Work. Currently she is a Research Associate with the FSU Institute for Family Violence Studies as well as the Director of the Tallahassee Domestic Violence Coordinating Council. Kelly specializes in domestic violence and supervised visitation research, and with the DVCC, provides dozens of workshops on dating abuse, elder abuse, and domestic violence each year.

While some may not realize it, many of the homeless women and children in our community are survivors of domestic violence. Safe housing is crucial to women and children fleeing abuse and she welcome this much needed discussion.

Amanda Wander

Amanda Wander is the Florida Housing Coalition’s Ending Homelessness Team Director. In this role, Wander works closely with Continuums of Care (CoC), local governments, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, service providers, and other stakeholders working to prevent and end homelessness in their communities. Knowing that homelessness is solvable, Wander provides training, technical assistance, and consulting to ensure communities have an effective housing crisis response system. Wander is also a HUD technical assistance provider to Continuums of Care throughout the United States helping to build capacity and navigate complex funding sources. Prior to working with the Coalition, Wander lead an 8 county Continuum of Care and has worked in various behavioral health, and homeless and housing programs including coordinated entry, Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), permanent supportive housing, and street outreach. As a strong advocate for housing first and with a passion to resolve and prevent chronic homelessness through utilizing data, evidence-based practices, and providing effective interventions, Wander has dedicated the past 15 years of her career to the implementation of solutions to ending homelessness. Wander holds a bachelor’s degree from Florida State University and has served as an HMIS Administrator, HUD Technical Advisor, and Trainer as well as a CoC Executive Director.

Fair Housing Symposium In-Person Registration

Fair Housing Facts

Sponsors