In the early years of the state, Israel prioritized the provision of public housing, mainly to accommodate the waves of immigrants in ‘50s and ‘60s. According to Israel’s Ministry of Housing, 22 percent of all housing at the end of the 1970s was public. In the mid-80s, with major economic reform, the government cut back on public housing, offering only a meager amount for immigrants from Ethiopia and then the former Soviet Union. In recent years, that percentage has dropped to 2.5 percent, falling below even that of the United States with 4.3 percent, and far below the 12 percent average in Europe.
 
Join us for a conversation with Lev Aran, a social change organizer with New Israel Fund’s public housing efforts, and a coordinator of the Public Housing Forum, and Adas member Ilana Preuss, founder of Recast City, and author of the forthcoming book Recast Your City, to hear about front-line efforts to ensure that everyone has the right to the housing they need, whether in Israel or in Washington, DC. 

Lev Aran is the NIF/Shatil Northern Social Change Organizer for Housing and Health. Lev has worked in this position for the past six years, organizing activists, and establishing NGO partnerships with local councils, committees, and community centers, while coordinating the Public Housing Forum. He has worked with Shatil since 2006 as the coordinator in several fields, including immigrant organizations, social justice, and housing and planning. In the past, Lev served as Director of the Institute for Community Enrichment for Preschool Education and as a Knesset aid drafting bills.

Community development expert, Ilana Preuss, brings her 25 years of experience in housing, transportation, and economic development to the discussion. Born in Israel, raised in the Zionist youth group, Young Judaea, Preuss worked in environmental planning in Israel after college, and then returned the U.S. to work in the federal and nonprofit worlds of community reinvestment. Preuss is a member of Adas Israel Congregation and has lived in the DMV since she was 6.