A year ago, I met a group of remarkable children at an Enterprise community outside the nation’s capital in Takoma Park, Maryland. While sharing high-fives, conversation, and a few Oreo cookies, I caught a glimpse of the future where these kids grow up in healthy and strong communities, anchored by affordable homes. And I realized that this is why I came to Enterprise: to help ensure everyone across the country has the freedom to make their dreams real.

So often that freedom comes with having an affordable place to live as shelter continues to be the main driver of inflation and too few homes are built. It’s heartbreaking that we, as a nation, have created the conditions for a record-setting homelessness crisis. In my three decades in the housing world, the scope of challenges before us has never been this broad and this deep.

As I said a year ago, we face a profound crisis — but as with any crisis, embedded within is opportunity.

From coast to coast and everywhere in between, Enterprise has been partnering with community leaders, policymakers, and developers to help not just navigate a difficult time but come through it better than we were before.

I’m proud that at Enterprise, we have helped transform that opportunity into action. Housing is now front and center in the presidential campaign. More than 30 governors raised the issue of housing affordability in their state of the state speeches this year.

Celebrating Milestones in the ‘House of Rouse’

Nothing better showcases the impact of the Enterprise platform than the tremendous milestone we reached this year: the creation of one million affordable homes.

From momentous occasions like birthday celebrations and family reunions to more routine activities like helping a child study for a test, life’s most important moments happen at home. That’s why reaching one million homes is such an extraordinary achievement. A million homes is larger than most American cities. We have proudly housed millions of families and had a lasting impact on millions of lives.

Achieving this important milestone is in many ways a validation of Jim Rouse’s vision for creating a new type of organization that could bring big ideas to scale, building bridges among community leaders, government partners, investors, and residents. As Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks recently wrote: “Call it the House of Rouse, spreading from Massachusetts to Oregon, from Alaska to the Virgin Islands."

Traversing the Nation, Confronting the Crisis

Over the past year, I’ve traveled from Baltimore to Boise, from Detroit to Denver, from Tribal communities to rural towns, meeting with thousands of inspiring people along the way. I’ve spoken with our partners like Curtis Doucette in New Orleans and Linda Smith in Detroit — individuals who have devoted their lives and careers to making a concrete difference in their communities — and who have worked tirelessly alongside our Enterprise teams.

We won’t rest on our laurels, however. Instead, we’re doubling down on our commitment to our partners. Now, we must leverage our unique, all-in-one platform to create the next million homes, serving untold millions of families in every corner of the country.

A More Equitable, More Resilient Future

Three years ago, we launched Equitable Path Forward, a $3.5 billion, five-year initiative to reverse generations of racial inequities in our housing system. Since then, we’ve supported developers of color in creating thousands of affordable homes, we’ve invested in their success, and despite the economic challenges, we’ve helped them grow and expand to unlock their full potential.

Advancing racial equity is at the center of everything we do at Enterprise, and we know that when it comes to climate change, low-income communities of color are far too often being left behind in the green energy revolution.

That’s why I’m proud that this year, Enterprise and its Power Forward Communities coalition secured a $2 billion award from the federal government to decarbonize hundreds of thousands of affordable homes across this country. Over the next seven years, we’ll use those funds to yield cleaner, healthier homes while also lowering overall costs, filling construction gaps, and making buildings more efficient and cheaper to operate. Fundamentally, we aim to transform the marketplace to ensure that low-income families reap the benefits of the clean energy revolution.

At a time when our country is seven million homes short of what we need to truly make housing affordable, we’re doing our part to close that gap.

We’ve championed dozens of land use and zoning reforms and built support for new federal, state, and local resources that will spur the creation and preservation of more affordable homes.

All of this progress is only possible because of our partners across the country, the partners that inspired Jim Rouse to start Enterprise in the first place. And for many of our partners, this year has been particularly challenging. Skyrocketing insurance costs, escalating prices, and a tough economic and social environment have all put the squeeze on owners and operators nationwide, jeopardizing thousands of affordable homes. The challenges are perhaps most acute for communities serving residents who’ve experienced homelessness. So, we’re working to support these partners through tough times, and using our federal, state, and local policy expertise to unlock structural change that will see them through to better times.

A New Fresh Start

As schools open for the new year, I feel the same energy and excitement I did last September when I met the group of children from Takoma Park. Like the best schools and universities, Enterprise has always been an incubator for new ideas. Jim Rouse helped establish the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, the largest source of federal dollars for building affordable housing.

Our breadth of programs continues to source, seed, and launch solutions in collaboration with forward-thinking funders, investors, and local, state, and national partners. From the Faith-based Development Initiative to the Renter Wealth Creation Fund and the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge and much more, we’re working arm in arm to shape a powerful new moment and movement for affordable housing.

This new movement is a natural evolution of our founder Jim Rouse’s vision: that “above all else,” we all possess the ability “to respect and care deeply” about each other.

We’ll continue working from a systems level, looking at how better policies can help both neighborhoods and our broader movement thrive — and provide critical lending and other financial support to ensure residents’ needs are met.

As I begin year two, I have this to say: We are Enterprise. Bring it on.