Julie Porter

Biography: Julie Porter is the President of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Housing Partnership. In this leadership role, Julie oversees all business and financial affairs of the organization. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Housing Partnership started in 1987 to finance, preserve and develop subsidized housing for low-income earners in and around Charlotte, NC., leading to the preservation and development of more than 2,200 units. The Housing Partnership has focused on distressed neighborhoods in Charlotte, NC including Greenville, Genesis Park and Druid Hills. The company has redeveloped Fairview Homes into Park at Oaklawn and is now working on the $125 million transformation of the 98-acre Double Oaks into the mixed-income Brightwalk community near uptown. Julie graduated from Wichita State University with a degree in Business Administration. She joined Mercantile Bank in 1994 and served first as an Assistant Vice President of Operations and Real Estate and then as Vice President of Construction Real Estate Lending. In 2000, Julie left banking to concentrate on community development and joined Greater Kansas City LISC as Senior Program Officer, responsible for administration, lending and finance. In this role, she underwrote and closed $8.9 million in loans for a wide variety of community development projects benefiting the Kansas City urban core, secured $1.5 million in state tax credits and $600,000 in Community Development Block Grant (HUD) funds. Julie was promoted to Executive Director of Greater Kansasw City LISC in July 2004 and in November 2005 launched NeighborhoodsNOW, a comprehensive revitalization program to transform neighborhoods into healthy, sustainable communities. During her tenure as Executive Director, Greater Kansas City LISC garnered private local donations of $7.4 million, local government awards of $960,000 and was awarded $3.4 million in direct federal appropriations for the NeighborhoodsNOW program.