Introducing our ReFrame 2025 Keynote Sessions
Join us in Kansas City, MO or online for their sessions this fall!
ReFrame Conference 2025 will be held at the Kansas City Country Club Plaza Marriott in Kansas City, MO from November 12-14, 2025. Together, we'll explore how we can build resilient organizations for resilient communities and hear from local organizations through a bus tour. We're excited to introduce our keynote speakers, Karen Black, and Representative Emanuel Cleaver II, and share information about our advocacy panel!
Wednesday, November 12th at 1pm (CST) | Karen Black, May 8 Consulting
Karen L. Black is the CEO of May 8 Consulting and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania in the Urban Studies Department. Black is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Drexel University Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation. In addition, Black is the co-founder of the Healthy Rowhouse Project, an initiative to improve access to private capital for preservation of privately owned affordable housing that has leveraged over $100 million in public and private capital. Black is the author of award-winning publications discussing strategies to revitalize communities, preserve and create affordable housing and attract private investment. Black taught a course on public policy responses to gentrification at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 2015. Prior to beginning her consulting practice, Black was the founding director of the Metropolitan Philadelphia Policy Center, a region-wide policy center founded to research issues impacting the economy, environment and equity within the Philadelphia metropolitan region. Prior to that, Black spent 12 years as a practicing civil rights attorney. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Williams College and a Doctorate of Law from the University of California at Los Angeles.
Karen's keynote session will explore what the latest research reveals about home repair's powerful role in improving housing stability, health, and wealth preservation.
Thursday, November 13th at 9am (CST) | Representative Emanuel Cleaver
A longtime champion for affordable homeownership and neighborhood revitalization, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II has advanced federal policies that expand housing access, strengthen home repair and rehabilitation efforts, and promote equitable investment in communities. In this session, Rep. Cleaver will highlight the vital role of housing preservation in fostering stable, thriving communities, both in Missouri’s Fifth District and across the nation.
Emanuel Cleaver, II is now serving his eleventh term representing Missouri's Fifth Congressional District, the home district of President Harry Truman. He is a member of the House Committee on Financial Services; Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance; member of Subcommittee on Capital Markets; and member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission.
In 2025, Congressman Cleaver successfully secured $15.5 million in federal grant funding to support the rehabilitation of Parade Park Homes, the oldest Black-owned housing cooperative in the nation, with more than 500 affordable housing units in the heart of the 18th & Vine Jazz District.
Friday, November 14th at 9am (CST) | Advocacy Panel
Driving Change Through Advocacy: A panel discussion on speaking up, building power, and creating lasting impact
Advocacy is one of the most powerful tools organizations have to drive long-term change. In this engaging panel discussion, members of the Coalition for Home Repair’s Advocacy Steering Committee will share how their programs have plugged broader housing movements and used on-the-ground experience to shape housing policy. This session will reframe advocacy not as extra work, but as mission-critical work – offering practical advice, examples, and lessons learned. Attendees will walk away with strategies to amplify their impact through advocacy.
This session will be a collaborative panel featuring panelists from four organizations:
- Jerry Zuniga, Habitat for Humanity International
- Michael McKnight, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative
- Trent Davis, Servants Inc.
- Lindsay Hicks, Habitat for Humanity of Kansas City
- Freyja Harris, Coalition for Home Repair