WHEREAS, The world of low-income housing lost a life-long friend and advocate, Cushing Dolbeare on Thursday, March 17, 2005; and
WHEREAS, Cushing’s work and dedication over the past 50 years will live on to inspire, inform and direct community development advocacy across the country for years to come; and
WHEREAS, Under Cushing’s leadership, the Philadelphia Housing Association merged with the Fair Housing Council of Delaware Valley, and became the Housing Association of Delaware Valley and from 1956
to 1971 and Cushing Dolbeare held the post of Managing Director of the Housing Association of Delaware Valley, where she used public information, technical assistance, research and watch dogging to expand housing opportunities and to fight to end racism and exploitation in housing; and
WHEREAS, In 1974, she brought together advocates from housing, labor, civil rights, religious and social service groups on a national level and founded the National Low Income Housing Coalition and because of her tireless work former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo called her “the Rosa Parks of housing.”; and
WHEREAS, She served as NLIHC’s Executive Director from 1977 to 1984 and again from 1993 to 1994 and remained active with NLJHC as a researcher, policy analyst, and board member until her death; and
WHEREAS, Cushing was one of the nation’s leading experts on federal housing policy and the housing circumstances of low income people and designed the methodology for and was the original author of Out of Reach, NLJHC’s widely cited annual report on the gap between housing costs and wages of low income people; and
WHEREAS, She was also well-known for her work on analyzing federal housing subsidies, documenting the disparity between the cost of tax-based subsidies that benefit homeowners and direct spending on housing assistance for low income households; and
WHEREAS, In 1995, Jason DeParle wrote in the New York Times of this adviser, friend and mentor to several HUD Secretaries and countless housing advocates and researchers that Cushing Dolbeare was the “dean” of the Washington corps of housing advocates; and
WHEREAS, Cushing Dolbeare is survived by her husband of 49 years, Louis P. Dolbeare, their son Louis N. Dolbeare, their daughter Mary O’Kane, her sister Alice Lynd, and four grandchildren, now therefore
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That we hereby honor the life and work of Cushing Dolbeare who was both the conscience and the brains of the affordable housing movement and whose life’s work helped millions of low income people obtain homes and extends to her family with the sympathy, the most sincere gratitude for her life’s accomplishments.
FURTHER RESOLVED, That an Engrossed copy of this resolution be presented to her family further evidencing the sincere and admiration of this legislative body.
End