Don Alexander is a partner in A&H Development which is located in Crossville and offers services in Middle and East Tennessee. A&H specializes in development activities working with local PHAs and nonprofits. Don received a BS in Business Administration from Kansas State University, attending on an athletic scholarship. After college Don worked for a large retail company for 12 years before being selected in 1990 to be the Executive Director of the Crossville Housing Authority; a position he held for 27 years. Don achieved much in his time at CHA, including expanding the CHA capacity from serving 294 families to 1,275 families, setting up a homeownership program that built and sold over 110 homes and a childcare facility that serves 189 children, establishing a non-profit that administers homeless programs throughout Upper Cumberland, and a program that originates RD loans. Much of this expansion of rental programs was done using THDA tools including HOUSE, HOME, THTF, NHTF, LIHTC and CITC.
A&H has served nonprofits and housing authorities in Middle and West Tennessee. They have assisted small projects such as 6-unit new construction, as well as larger projects like a 48-unit LIHTC or a $4 million rehab project. Don was one of the founding members of the Tennessee Affordable Housing Coalition and has received several Tennessee’s Best awards from THDA including Advocate of the Year Legacy Award. In 2016 Don was elected to the Tennessee Affordable Housing Hall of Fame.
Dr. Christopher Herbert Managing Director Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
Dr. Christopher Herbert is Managing Director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and a Lecturer in the Department of Urban Planning and Design. Dr. Herbert has extensive experience in research related to housing policy and urban development both in the U.S. and abroad. His research focuses on the financial, social and demographic dimensions of homeownership, the dynamics of the rental housing market, the nature and causes of racial and socioeconomic segregation, and the implications of a rapidly aging society for housing. Dr. Herbert is co-editor of A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality
(2018) and Homeownership Built to Last: Balancing Access, Affordability, and Risk After the Housing Crisis
(Brookings Institution Press, 2014). He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Freddie Mac. He holds a PhD and Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University, and a BA in History from Dartmouth College.
