2018 Annual Luncheon

Chair & CEO, NYCHA

Shola Olatoye is the recipient of the 2018 Roger Starr Public Service Award. Since 2014, she has served as Chair & Chief Executive Officer of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), the largest public housing authority in the nation, providing decent and affordable housing for more than 620,000 New Yorkers.

Executive Director, University Neighborhood Housing Program (UNHP)

Jim Buckley is the founding Executive Director of University Neighborhood Housing Program (UNHP), a non-profit, Bronx-based community organization working to create, preserve, and improve affordable housing and bring needed resources to the Northwest Bronx. In pursuit of that goal, UNHP provides technical assistance to community organizations, develops affordable housing, researches and organizes around issues that affect affordability, and serves local residents through its Northwest Bronx Neighborhood Resource Center which provides financial education, tax preparation, eviction prevention, and foreclosure prevention assistance.

President, Richmac Funding

Mathew Wambua joined the Richman Group in 2013 as the President of Richmac Funding, Richman’s newly formed mortgage multifamily lending platform. He rapidly grew Richmac into one of the nation’s leading affordable housing lenders, providing construction and preservation debt products for LIHTC, Section 8, workforce, mixed income, and LURA properties.

BFC Partners

BFC Partners receives CHPC’s 2018 Impact Award for Housing for its work on the Ingersoll Senior Residences in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Ingersoll, set to open in summer 2019, will provide 145 apartments designed specifically for older adults as well as a senior center with hot meals, computer literacy training, fitness and arts programming, and supportive case management. It is the first project in New York State for low-income LGBT seniors—LGBT age-friendly housing exists in 10 other states across the country—and the largest of its kind in the United States. At Ingersoll, BFC has partnered with Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE), the oldest and largest organization in the country dedicated to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender older adults. One hundred percent of the apartments will be affordable.

Journalist

Errol Louis is the Political Anchor of NY1 News, where he hosts “Inside City Hall,” a nightly prime-time show about New York City politics, on which he interviews top political and cultural leaders, including an exclusive weekly one-on-one conversation with Mayor Bill de Blasio. Errol has also conducted interviews with ex-mayors David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Bloomberg; Gov. Andrew Cuomo; and presidential candidates including Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.