Welcome to the official page for the 2012 Building Michigan Communities Conference. The conference is being held April 23-25, 2012 at the Lansing Center in Lansing, Michigan.
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Pre-Registration is now closed. Onsite registration will be available at the conference. Please come to the registration desk in the main concourse of the Lansing Center, April 23-35.
View the Registration Brochure
*This program is approved by the Michigan Social Work Continuing Education Collaborative. The conference is also InterNACHI approved.
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Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley
Brian Calley is the second youngest lieutenant governor in Michigan’s history.
Before being elected to this position, Calley served two terms in the Michigan Legislature as a state representative. In that role, Calley served as minority vice chair of the House Tax Policy Committee where he worked with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. Calley is committed to continuing this spirit of bipartisanship to bring an end to the bitter fighting and divisiveness that has held Michigan back for so long.
Prior to his time as a state lawmaker, Calley worked 10 years as a community banker and small business lender. He was also elected to the Ionia County Board of Commissioners, serving from 2003 to 2006 as the vice chairman for all four years of his tenure there. Calley graduated from Michigan State University in 1998 with a B.A. in business administration and received his MBA from Grand Valley State University in 2000.
Calley is an active member of the Portland Baptist Church where he is a song leader and pianist as well as serving on the deacon board. His wife Julie teaches Sunday school to middle school age children. Together, they have three young children: Collin, Reagan and Karagan.
Monday Breakfast Keynotes – Gary Heidel and Anneshia Freeman
Gary Heidel was appointed Interim Executive Director of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority on July 1, 2010 and permanent Executive Director by the MSHDA board October 20, 2010. He began his service at MSHDA 25 years ago as Director of Legislative and Intergovernmental Relations. He has been Director of Program Policy & Market Research since 2002, and from 1984 to 1986 he was a legislative liaison for the Michigan Department of Commerce. From 1979 to 1982 he was legislative assistant to Michigan State Senator John Kelly, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Corporations and Economic Development. From 1977 to 1979 he was a staff assistant to U.S. Senator Donald Riegle (D-MI).
During the last 25 years, Gary has played a significant role in implementing various important policies at the state and federal levels of government. These include the Neighborhood Preservation Program (NPP), the federal HOME program, federal Empowerment Zone program, Individual Development Accounts (IDA), Michigan Mortgage Credit Certificate Program (MCC), Cool Cities, Michigan Magnet Fund, Vision 2020, Centers of Regional Excellence (CRE), and the Michigan Housing and Community Development Fund (HCDF).
Gary has received several awards including the advocacy award from the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness, the Bernice Bensen Service Award from Habitat for Humanity Michigan, and the Community Economic Development (CED) Advocate of the Year Award from the Community Economic Development Association of Michigan (CEDAM).
Gary graduated from the University of Michigan in 1976. He also has graduated from various executive leadership programs. These include the Michigan Political Leadership program at Michigan State University, Governors Center at Duke University, and the JFK School of Government at Harvard University.
The Anneshia Freeman Story – “Gentlemen, we can rebuild her, we have the technology”
In this plenary session you will experience the ground-breaking effects of one woman’s journey to self-renewal as she learned to break down her unconscious belief system to Housing, Assets, People, Partners | www.housingconference.org | 3
build a better understanding of herself, her relationships, and her life choices to move from a pattern of self-destruction to self-discovery. Anneshia Freeman’s story is one of restoration after the system declared her incorrigible. Anneshia will introduce you to the people and institutions that strategically implemented a human “asset building” campaign that is paying huge dividends in her life. She will show how negative choices are not inherent to the person who makes them but rather a result of their unconscious belief system. Anneshia will also explain how her experience can be replicated to help other people change their own unconscious belief systems. By evaluating and understanding the beliefs that lead people to negative choices, we can expose those beliefs and help individuals to change them, arming them with the power to make good decisions and leading to healthier, happier lives. The session will expose participants to radical new ideas for the social work process that will provide irreplaceable insights to anyone engaged in social work, community development, service delivery, asset building, or any other form of public service.
Anneshia Freeman is the creator and Director of a copy-written, trademarked, cognitive restructuring and resocialization program entitled The Lies That Bind – The Legacy of the Locks®. The program is based on the work of several experts in the fields of neuroscience and psychology. Anneshia integrates concepts from neuroscience, psychology, and computer programming along with 15 years of participant observation, exploratory, ethnographic research experience into one innovative cause and effect treatment methodology.
Currently Anneshia is employed at Arbor Circle where she has trained nine MSW therapists in her program methodology.
Monday Luncheon Keynote – Liz Murray
Liz Murray - Author, Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard
From homeless to Harvard . . . it is an unlikely turn of events. Liz Murray’s life is a triumph over adversity and a stunning example of the importance of dreaming big. Murray’s life as the child of cocaine-addicted parents in the Bronx was bitterly grim. There was never food in the house, everything was filthy, drugs were everywhere and the welfare checks were spent before they arrived.
By age 15, Murray’s mom had died and she was homeless-living on the streets, riding the subway all night and eating from dumpsters. Amidst this pain, Murray always imagined her life could be much better than it was. “I started to grasp the value of the lessons learned while living on the streets. I knew, after overcoming those daily obstacles that next to nothing could hold me down.” Determined to take charge of her life, Murray finished high school in just two years while camping out in New York City parks and subway stations.
Murray’s story is exhilarating and her delivery innocently honest, as she takes audiences on a very personal journey where she achieves the improbable. Her story sounds like a Hollywood movie-and it practically is. Lifetime Television produced a movie about Murray’s life story entitled From Homeless to Harvard, which premiered in April 2003. Murray is the recipient of Oprah Winfrey’s first ever Chutzpah Award. Her memoir, Breaking Night, was released in September 2010 and within a week landed on The New York Times Best-seller List.
Murray received her B.S. in Psychology from Harvard University in June 2009.
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Wednesday Luncheon Keynote – Bill Strickland
For thirty years, Bill Strickland has transformed thousands of lives, restored our faith in ethical leadership, and reshaped the business of social change. As president and CEO of the Manchester Bidwell Corporation– an extraordinary jobs training center and community arts program — he and his staff work with corporations, community leaders, and schools to give disadvantaged kids and adults the opportunities they need to build a better future. (Centers are already running in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and San Francisco; many more are planned.) And for years now, in front of enraptured audiences, this MacArthur Genius has shared his unshakable message of leadership, self-worth and the intrinsic ability in all of us to achieve remarkable transformation in our lives. “Bill Strickland is a genius,” says former e-Bay president Jeff Skoll, “because he sees the inherent genius in everyone.”
Bill Strickland is also the author of Make the Impossible Possible, a recipient of The White House’s “Coming Up Taller” Award, and the founder of the Grammy-winning MCG Jazz, the most successful jazz subscription series in America.
Interested in exhibit or sponsorship opportunities?
Breakout sessions will be offered in the following tracks:
Assets – Organizational
Assets – Vibrant Communities
Housing – Multifamily
Housing – Homeownership
People – Homelessness
People – Assets
Mark Your Calendars
Future Dates:
April 28 – May 1, 2013
April 27 – 30, 2014
April 26-29, 2015
