Cathy Williams leaving NeighborWorks Columbus CEO role. Her impact. What’s next
Cathy Williams, president and CEO of NeighborWorks Columbus, will never forget the moment she realized it was time for a change.
A couple of years ago, Williams gave a speech to a panel of state legislators urging politicians to pay more attention to housing problems in the state. As she walked out a door in the back of the building, Williams, who has headed NeighborWorks Columbus for around 28 years, realized she could have given the same speech 30 years ago.
“Nothing has changed,” she told the Ledger-Enquirer in an interview last week. “And I got angry instead of getting motivated and passionate. I got angry, and I said, ‘Oh. I need to retire.’”
Williams will step down as president and CEO on July 1 and will be succeeded by deputy director Kimberly Hinton-Poole, who has been training over the last two years to take on the role.
Although Williams won’t be doing the day-to-day management of NeighborWorks Columbus, she also is not officially retiring yet. Williams will continue to be available as a resource for Hinton-Poole and will focus on doing what she’s most passionate about, including housing development policy and advocacy.
Hinton-Poole initially trained to be the interim president, Williams said, but the deputy director impressed their board of directors, who offered her the position.
“They voted unanimously to put her into the permanent CEO position,” Williams said. “And I couldn’t be happier with that decision. She’s ready. She’s terrific. She’s got a real great vision for the future of the organization, and I think that’s what we were all looking for.”
The positive impact NeighborWorks Columbus has had during Williams’ tenure was a collaborative effort, she said, and she expects uncertainty to create challenges for the organization as she moves to a new phase in her life.
“I don’t think I’ll ever not feel a passion and a compelling force to do something,” Williams said. “And that’s going to be the hardest thing when I do actually retire. What do I do with that, and how do I put it in a box? Because the need is so great, and housing is so critical to all of our lives.”
‘None of what we’ve accomplished is about my legacy’
Williams began working with the organization in 1997 when it was called the Columbus Housing Initiative before it began doing business as NeighborWorks Columbus in 2004.
It remains the only community development financial institution in the Columbus area providing financial services to underserved communities.
“Good affordable housing lends itself to lower crime rates, lower truancy, higher educational attainment and higher financial attainment,” Williams said. “We not only assist families with limited housing choices, but we also build wealth for financial independence for the future of our families.”
Between 1999 and 2024, NeighborWorks helped 4,009 people become new homeowners and 14,388 customers receive financial counseling and education, according to an impact report. The organization owned or managed 515 rental homes and apartments and built or rehabilitated 342 housing units.
Around 66% of NeighborWorks’ customers are first-time homebuyers. The three groups who are “most precious to us because we can’t be everything to everyone” are low-income veterans, low-income elderly and single parents, Williams said.
“A legacy piece is Elliott’s Walk,” she said. “But it’s not my legacy. None of what we’ve accomplished is about my legacy.”
Elliott’s Walk was the dream of Columbus builder Hal Averett, Williams said, who worked with his church community to acquire the property to build more affordable housing.
Much of what NeighborWorks has done is because of teamwork, she said. Williams feels her part was helping to build capital and figuring out how to make dreams like Elliott’s Walk work.
“One thing I’ve been able to contribute to the teams is building that map on how to get there, where the domino is going to fall, what has to be first and what has to be second,” Williams said. “And when they’re all in place and the stars are aligned, magic happens.”
One of the tools Williams is proud of taking advantage of is the New Markets Tax Credit Program, which is federally incentivized private money. These investments from corporations have been a “game changer” by keeping costs down and homes affordable for families, she said.
NeighborWorks consistently works to determine what needs to be done, she said. When builders weren’t willing to work in their communities, Williams said, they became builders. When banks didn’t find risk rewards for low-income mortgages, they became a community development financial institution.
“At one point, we couldn’t get realtors to show our houses,” she said. “We became realtors. So, we look at the field — the entire sector of housing — and see how we can improve it in our community.”
Challenges and constraints
Williams has gone through the Great Recession and COVID-19 while working with NeighborWorks, and she recognizes the challenges and deficiencies there have been in addressing housing affordability.
The first issue is in education.
“We don’t do the best job in educating our high school and college population of what credit scores mean for their future,” Williams said. “We should be doing better because a lot of our students come out of school, especially higher education, deep in debt.”
That debt coupled with a lifestyle that isn’t financially prudent can make things harder for individuals.
NeighborWorks made progress on this front during the pandemic by making many of its educational resources available online.
Before COVID, families had to come to meet with counselors and bring in paperwork. Now, anyone can go to their website to get started.
An important constraint that limits what NeighborWorks can do is simply the size of the problem.
Data shows the gap between what’s affordable and what’s available is in excess of 14,000 units in Columbus, Williams said. This means about 14,000 families in Columbus are housing-vulnerable and living in substandard housing or paying too much.
“This is an all-hands-on-deck crisis,” she said. “NeighborWorks isn’t the only organization that can fix this because we can’t. We need the city, we need the state, we need the federal government, we need churches, we need foundations, we need investment partners, and we need the public.”
Uncertainty ahead
Part of what makes this work rewarding, Williams said, is seeing families who believed they would never own a home use equity from their home to put kids through college 20 years later.
However, there’s uncertainty on a national level as federal programs are under scrutiny by the Trump Administration. NeighborWorks depends on its partners, Williams said, and the federal government has been an effective partner.
This is worrying because, at the top level, they need to have some security as to how the U.S. Housing and Urban Development or the U.S. Treasury Department will operate, she said.
“Insecurity makes it very difficult to do what we do on a daily basis, so we’re watching it,” Williams said.
Now that she’s stepping down, this uncertainty of federal programs, financing and congressional priorities will challenge Hinton-Poole.
“She’s up to it,” Williams said. “She’ll be fine. And I like to look at the glass as half full, not half empty. Where there are threats, there are opportunities.”
Williams is looking forward to the “next Elliott’s Walk.” A 30-acre property off Farr Road was donated to NeighborWorks. There’s no name for it yet, but Williams expects development there in the next two years.
Meanwhile, she wants to focus on her advocacy, fulfilling her commitments in her role serving on the State Transportation Board and spending time watching her grandchildren grow up.
“I’ve loved every single minute that I have been here as CEO, but it is time for a new generation to step in and take this organization to the next level,” Williams said. “I just look forward to helping her achieve that over the next couple of years.”
