Richard Godfrey | Executive director, Roger Williams University interdisciplinary Real Estate Program
1. What do you hope students will learn from your new interdisciplinary real estate program? Our goal with RWU’s new program is to build an expansive and multidisciplinary skill set for our students that makes them successful in the interconnected real estate business and related professions.
2. What do the program offerings teach about local real estate issues such as affordable housing, homelessness, etc.? One of the principal distinguishing benefits of designing and offering real estate programs at Roger Williams is that students can study, think and practice the profession in a great laboratory like Rhode Island. We are one of the most densely developed, and most environmentally sensitive, states in the country, yet we are small enough that actions by a few engaged individuals or organizations can make a huge difference at a local and state level.
3. What did you learn while serving as executive director of the R.I. Housing and Mortgage Finance Corp. that could prove valuable to your program and students?The services and homes provided by organizations such as Crossroads R.I. and Amos House have had a tremendously beneficial impact, and I plan to leverage my network across these organizations and agencies to connect them with our RWU faculty and students.
4. What are the most concerning issues facing Rhode Island’s housing crisis, and how do you think they should be addressed? I recently testified before the R.I. General Assembly’s Low- and Moderate-Income Housing [Act] Commission and offered five priority recommendations: stop operating in silos; empower private residential development aimed at sustainable growth; increase support for nonprofit community development organizations; ensure sufficient funding for supportive services; and address the effects of past patterns of discrimination by creating an equity-generating homeownership program for first-generation buyers.
5. Gov. Daniel J. McKee proposed $250 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding for housing over a six-year period in his fiscal 2023 budget proposal. What would be your plan for using the funding to create a long-term sustainable housing program? I would recommend a few tweaks to the plans, such as making the down payment program an equity-generating one and limiting the acquisition and predevelopment funding programs to nonprofit entities.
