November 18-19, 2024
Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center - Madison, Wisconsin

Missing Middle Housing: Thinking Big, Building Small to Respond to Today's Housing Crisis

Jennifer leads the newly established Chicago office of Opticos Design and brings over 15 years of experience in transforming the built environment to enhance people’s everyday lives. In her career, she has led numerous community design charrettes and played a critical role in neighborhood, city, and regional master planning projects. These visions formed the basis for innovative comprehensive and zoning plan overhauls, as well as the future build-out of important development sites. She holds the unique ability to craft projects from broad scale thinking to concrete built form. Jennifer advocates for intentional communities and neighborhoods that provide diverse housing choices, closely collaborating with cities to better calibrate their regulations to enable Missing Middle Housing. Before rejoining Opticos in 2022, she led the zoning code update for the City of South Bend, winner of the 2021 Richard Driehaus Form-Based Code Award, followed by the creation of a pre-approved building catalog to help implement infill housing in South Bend neighborhoods. Under her direction, the Chicago team of Opticos recently completed a Missing Middle Housing Study for Asheville, NC and a zoning code update for the Mixed-Use corridors of Columbus, Ohio.

Arlo Washington, Founder and President of People Trust Community Loan Fund and President and CEO of People Trust Community Federal Credit Union of Little Rock, Arkansas, will discuss his journey from barber to banker to being nominated for an Academy Award. He’ll also discuss his visionary approach to economic justice and how he creates community development initiatives to advance equity for low- and moderate-income individuals and communities. We will engage in a conversation after viewing selected parts of the 2023 documentary short film, “The Barber of Little Rock,” which chronicles Washington’s transition to becoming a leader advocating for economic justice in his community.