About Nancy Biberman

For over two decades Nancy Biberman, Esq., founder and president of the Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDCO), has been a public policy activist whose achievements include housing reform, domestic violence prevention, and economic opportunity programs for low-income families. Since 1986 Nancy has been developing distinctively stylish apartments for thousands of New Yorkers based on her belief that "uplifting spaces transform; horrific environments degrade," an operating principle that has evolved from years of representing indigent clients into a mission to achieve social change by creating beautiful and affordable housing which residents are proud to call home.

Nancy began her career as a Legal Services attorney providing representation in civil matters to low income families on Manhattan's lower east side. She was co-counsel in a landmark class action lawsuit in New York City, which ensured that battered women had access to both the court system and police protection. Nancy went on to defend indigent, mentally ill, and elderly clients who faced illegal and sometimes violent evictions from Single Room Occupancy Hotels (SROs). In 1980 she became the founding Director of the East Side SRO Law Project. Searching for more permanent solutions to the housing crisis plaguing the city's poor, Nancy was awarded a Revson Fellowship in 1985 to study at Columbia University's School of Architecture and Planning. During her fellowship year, she conceived and later developed an intergenerational housing program for low-income tenants, assembling $8.6 million in financing for acquisition and renovation of a 100-unit building on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The completed project is the nationally recognized West End Intergenerational Residence, known for its unique programs for homeless families and seniors and for its enthusiastic support from its upscale neighborhood.

In 1988, Nancy became the Executive Director of Highbridge Heights Housing where she oversaw the development of a $60 million, city-financed rehabilitation of vacant buildings and land in the Highbridge section of South Bronx. Completed in only three years, the finished complex includes a childcare center, a health clinic, and other social services along with apartments for 722 low- and moderate-income families. In l991 Nancy formed the Women's Housing & Economic Development Corporation (WHEDCO) and set her sights on the neighboring Morrisania Hospital, a stately but severely dilapidated building that had been abandoned for over twenty years. Assembling $23 million to restore the building was an uphill battle for a start-up organization, but in 1998 the restoration, known as Urban Horizons, began operations. The campus, known as Urban Horizons provides apartments for 132 families and houses a number of poverty-fighting services for the community: housing development and relocation, job training, child care, youth education, social work services and microenterprise. WHEDCo serves more than 3,200 women, men and children annually with a staff of 148, 109 full time and 39 part time, and a budget of $6 million. A second development is scheduled to break ground in late 2005, will include 127 apartments for low-income families, within an environmentally green and technologically state-of-the-art building. In an adjacent building a unique, support-based program will supply 46 apartments specifically for young adults aging out of foster care.

Nancy has served on two committees- the Municipal Art Society's IMAGINENY and the Labor Community Advocacy Network to Rebuild New York (LCAN)- that worked to ensure broad-based community input into priorities in rebuilding New York City following the attack on the World Trade Center.

A frequent contributor to publications on housing and social policy, Nancy has taught at Harvard University, NYU, and the City University of New York. In 2002 Harvard Business School selected her as a guest panelist for its Dynamic Women in Business conference. In her spare time, Nancy serves as a Trustee of the Bronx Museum of the Arts. She and her husband, Roger Evans, have three children: Matt, Jake and Lily.