2020 YWCA Lifetime Achievement Award
The YWCA celebrates three remarkable women in the Charlotte community, each embodying YWCA's mission of eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, & dignity for all. Click below to watch the video of Judy’s speech at 34:12.
Faith in Housing
Six Charlotte congregations shared their initiatives to create affordable housing at the Faith In Housing workshops sponsored by the Stan Greenspon Center at Queens University of Charlotte. A year-long blog series featured the stories of these and other faith-based initiatives to create affordable housing.
A Way Home
The A Way Home Housing Endowment moves families experiencing homelessness into housing, paying the difference between what the landlord charges and what the family can afford. A Way Home also arranges for social services to help the family overcome the barriers that led to homelessness. After two years of rental subsidies and social services, 3 of 4 A Way Home families sustain their stability for at least two more years after support ends.
Stan Greenspon Center of Queens University of Charlotte
As a volunteer organizer, Judy Seldin-Cohen led a year-long campaign to create more affordable housing for the lowest-income residents of Charlotte. Mobilizing over one hundred other volunteers through the Stan Greenspon Center of Queens University of Charlotte, she organized nineteen separate meetings with elected officials at City Council. With support from other advocacy groups, the 2018 campaign led to a historic $50 million affordable housing bond, a greater share of units for the lowest-income households, and more funding for rental subsidies.
Read more about this work in Judy’s essay “Beyond Casseroles” in
Impact: Personal Portraits of Activism or in the free podcast.