Chris Garland currently holds the position of Community Development Manager with NCST. In this role, Garland works with a network of diverse affordable housing developers across the country while also serving as lead coordinator for the National Middle Neighborhoods Steering Committee. Chris has a strong history in utilizing research-based methods, leveraging strong partnerships, and implementing creative solutions to deliver positive community development impact. Prior to joining NCST, Chris served as Assistant Director of City Planning and previously as the Commissioner of Neighborhood Development for the City of Cleveland. Chris has also had direct CDC experience as Executive Director of two nonprofit organizations, Jefferson East Inc. in Detroit, MI and Tremont West Development Corporation in Cleveland, OH.

Chris is a graduate of Wayne State and resides in Cleveland with his wife, Ann and four children and is an active member of Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood and also serves as a Program Mentor in the Real Estate Diversity Initiative (REDI) of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Cleveland Chapter.

Michael Neal is a senior fellow in the Housing Finance Policy Center and a former equity scholar at the Urban Institute. Previously, he worked at Fannie Mae, where he was a director of economics in the Economics and Strategic Research Group. Before joining Fannie Mae, Neal was the assistant vice president at the National Association of Home Builders’ Economic and Housing Policy department. As a housing economist, Neal has an in-depth knowledge of housing market trends and has provided expert analysis and commentary on housing to media outlets around the country. Previously, he worked at Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve System, the Congressional Budget Office, and Goldman Sachs.

Through grant funding, Neal is a 2024 JPMorgan Chase Fellow and member of the National Bureau of Economic Research Race and Stratification Working Group. He is also a member of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Homeownership Working Group for Project REACh and serves on the technical data advisory committee for the Black Wealth Data Center. Additionally, Neal is an independent consultant for AlphaSights.

Neal has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Morehouse College and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Pennsylvania. He also studied economics at St. Catherine’s College of the University of Oxford (through the State University of New York Brockport) and finance in the Graduate School at Princeton University.

Katie Visalli is a research analyst in the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Her recent work focuses on loss mitigation, LGBTQ+ homeownership, and housing market trends via the At a Glance monthly chartbook. Before joining Urban, Visalli presented her undergraduate research, titled “Racial Differences in Forbearance and Refinancing among Low-Income Homeowners during COVID-19,” at the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management 2021 Fall Research Conference.

Visalli graduated magna cum laude with research distinction from the Ohio State University with a BA in philosophy, politics, and economics.