Dan Kildee
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Daniel T. Kildee is Co-Founder and President of Community Progress. Prior to founding the Center, Kildee served as Genesee County Treasurer from 1997-2009. Before his election as Treasurer, Dan served for 12 years as a Genesee County Commissioner, including five years as Chairman of the Board of Commissioners.

Dan also has served as President of the Genesee Institute, a research and training institute focusing on Smart Growth, urban land reform, and land banking. Dan was a member of the Executive Committee of the National Vacant Properties Campaign; Community Progress is the successor to the Genesee Institute and the National Vacant Properties Campaign. Dan initiated the use of Michigan’s new tax foreclosure law as a tool for community development and neighborhood stabilization. He founded the Genesee Land Bank – Michigan’s first land bank, and a model for others around the nation – and serves as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In 2007, Dan’s Land Bank program was named winner of the Harvard University/Fannie Mae Foundation Innovations in American Government Award for Affordable Housing. In 2009, Dan was named one of the “GOOD 100″ by the Los Angeles-based GOOD Magazine, recognizing him as one of the “the most important, exciting, and innovative people, ideas, and projects making our world better.

Dan grew up in Flint, and was educated at the University of Michigan-Flint, Central Michigan University; he was a Fannie Mae Foundation Fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard University in 2005. Dan and Jennifer Kildee have been married for 22 years and have three children: Ryan, Kenneth, and Katy.

Blog Entries by Dan Kildee

Finally, A Commonsense Proposal in the Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis

0 Comments | Posted March 26, 2012 | 1:07 PM

For years before the housing bubble burst, the argument was that you could never lose by investing in -- or betting on -- real estate. That was the "logic" used not only by a segment of shady mortgage lenders but by the mainstream industry, and by every president in modern...

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Ending Land Speculation That Drives Blight: Change the System, Change the Players

5 Comments | Posted March 8, 2012 | 11:05 AM

While many housing and community activists have long intuited that well-financed "vacant property speculators" were wreaking havoc in their communities -- driving down prices, prolonging vacancies and spreading blight -- a new study by the Cleveland Fed both substantiates their suspicions and opens up the discussion about thoughtful...

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Big Bank Settlement Offers Cities Opportunity to Address Foreclosure Devastation - If They Take It

2 Comments | Posted February 16, 2012 | 11:32 AM

The $26 billion settlement between state attorneys general, the federal government and five of the nation's largest banks offers a cautionary tale and some real opportunities for communities grappling with the foreclosure crisis.

While the most apparent beneficiaries are the homeowners who will receive modest compensation (on average $2000)...

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Federal Government Needs to Send a Clearer Message -- and a Strong One

0 Comments | Posted January 2, 2012 | 12:23 PM

While forging their own solutions, neighborhoods, towns, cities and states alike are looking to the Federal Government for support in fighting the scourge of abandoned and foreclosed properties that are undermining blocks, neighborhoods and government coffers. Yet in the past month, rather than shed light, messages from Washington have been...

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