Michelle McDonough Winters is Visiting Fellow for Housing at the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing from February 2014 to May 2016. Ms. Winters brings over 20 years of experience working in the housing and community development field on issues ranging from housing finance and policy to nonprofit capacity building. She is currently president of Winters Community Strategies, a consulting practice focusing on the intersection of affordable housing and sustainable communities.

Ms. Winters most recently led the sustainability initiatives of NeighborWorks America, where she developed the first organization-level green designation program for housing and community development nonprofits. She managed the organization’s national grantmaking and technical assistance efforts to help nonprofits develop and manage more environmentally sustainable affordable housing and communities. She previously served as program director for affordable housing preservation at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), where she provided loans and technical assistance to nonprofit developers and managed an active federal policy agenda.

Prior to joining LISC, Ms. Winters spent nine years at Fannie Mae and the Fannie Mae Foundation in a variety of positions including director of regulatory policy and director of mission strategy and community analytics. During her time there she was responsible for major policy efforts including overseeing the company’s policy and market analysis related to its federally-mandated affordable housing goals, as well as managing an initiative to break down regulatory barriers to affordable housing development at the state and local levels. Earlier in her career, Ms. Winters conducted housing research at the MIT Center for Real Estate, the Urban Institute and the Virginia Center for Housing Research. She has served as an associate editor of Housing Policy Debate and editorial assistant for the Journal of Housing Economics.

Ms. Winters spent four years serving on the Housing Commission in Arlington, Virginia, from 2007-2010. She was chair of the Bricks and Mortar committee and served as chairman of the commission in 2008. Ms. Winters has a Master in City Planning from MIT where she specialized in Housing, Community and Economic Development, and she earned her BA in Urban Affairs from Virginia Tech.