Housing Heroes
The Sonoma County Housing Coalition will presents the Housing Hero Award to the person, people or organization that has made a significant contribution to providing affordable housing in Sonoma County each year. It could be a person who has worked for years to make a difference in this field or who has given large, continuing contributions, or people within an entity who have worked to make a significant policy change that has affected the community’s ability to create affordable housing, or an organization or developer who has helped provide affordable housing in a creative or significant way during the past year.
The award recipient receives the Housing Hero Award at the Affordable Housing Week Leadership Breakfast each year.
2010 Housing Hero
The Sonoma County Housing Coalition will be honoring as their 2010 Housing Hero; Margo Warnecke Merck, at their annual Affordable Housing Week breakfast May 10th, 2010 at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa. Former Board President of Community Housing Sonoma County, Margo has displayed an undaunted commitment to provide for the housing needs of extremely low-income persons living with disabilities. “We are so proud of the work that Margo has accomplished always making sure that we focus on the human element of what we do at Community Housing Sonoma County,” stated Paula Cook, Executive Director of the organization. “Margo has been an outstanding advocate for special needs housing throughout Sonoma County, and she has authored landmark legislation to create a reasonable accommodation ordinance. Margo has always been there to further the mission of Community Housing Sonoma County–when work needed to be done to make housing happen.”
Dianne Spaulding, Executive Director of the Non-Profit Housing Association of California says of Margo: “No one has represented the interests of special needs/ affordable housing in the last fifteen years more than Margo. She has been a tireless, articulate and passionate leader on behalf of all underrepresented groups who desperately need affordable housing. She was a leader in the NPH-9 county Housing Advocacy Network, a staunch supporter for Proposition 46, Prop 1C, Inclusionary zoning and many other funding and policy initiatives. ”
Margo has quietly gone about setting Community Housing Sonoma County on the right course. Since 2003, her efforts helped lead to successful partnerships that have produced 179 units of very low-income housing, with 71 units set aside as permanent supportive housing for persons living with disabilities.
For her dedication to creating housing opportunities for people in our community, we hope you will join us in honoring Margo Warnecke Merck . To learn more about the goals and mission of Community Housing Sonoma County please visit http://www.ch-sc.org For more information on the SCHC Affordable Housing Week Events please visit our Events Calendar page.
For more information on Margo, please read the 2010 Housing Hero Press Release.
Past Housing Heroes:
2009: Craig Meltzner
2008: City of Petaluma
2007: Sydney and Herschel Berry, Housing Advocates for the Disabled
2006: Ray Ambrosio, Christopherson Homes
2005: Stephen F. Burke, Executive Director, City of Santa Rosa Redevelopment Agency
2004: Burbank Housing Development Corp.
2010 Nominations
To submit a nomination, please use the online submission form on this page.
