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Helen Kanovsky

General Counsel at the Department for Housing and Urban Development (since May 2009)

(HUD)

Why She Matters

Kanovsky has been hooked on solving housing issues since sitting through a hearing on mobile homes as a Senate intern.

The Harvard-educated lawyer took a job as assistant to Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Patricia Roberts Harris under President Jimmy Carter soon after graduating from law school and has been addressing a range of housing issues ever since. Kanovsky supervised the AFL-CIO's Housing Investment Trust (HIT), which invests union members' pensions in home-building and preservation around the country, for more than a decade.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Chief Operating Officer, AFL-CIO's Housing Investment Trust (2001 to 2008); Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration, AFL-CIO's Housing Investment Trust (1998 to 2001); Chief of Staff, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass), (1998)
Hometown: Washington, D.C.

Alma Mater: Cornell University, M.A., 1973; Harvard University, J.D., 1976
Web site

Path to Power

Kanovsky grew up outside of Washington, D.C. She moved to upstate New York for college to attend Cornell University.

While in college, Kanovsky interned for then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.). At the time, Biden was a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. As his youngest staffer, she was often sent to listen to committee hearings. One afternoon, she sat through a film showing mobile homes blowing away in a storm. It was that experience, she said, that got her hooked on housing issues.

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Kanovsky attended Harvard University Law School and earned her J.D. in 1976. After graduating, she took a job with the law firm Dickstein, Shapiro and Morin as an associate. She left the private sector in 1979 for a job as special assistant to HUD Secretary Harris.

In 1981, she returned to Dickstein, Shapiro. Three years later, she moved to Leff & Mason as a partner.

Housing Investment Trust

In 1986, Kanovsky was named executive vice president and general counsel of the Skyline Financial Services Corp. She moved in 1995 to the AFL-CIO, where she worked as general counsel and chair of the Housing Investment Trust (HIT). The HIT is the mutual fund where AFL-CIO members' pensions are invested. The focus of HIT twofold: generating good returns investments while supporting socially-responsible causes like increasing the supply of affordable housing and preservation. HIT has invested more than $5 billion in more than 85,000 units of housing, and has generated more than 58,000 union jobs, according to the HIT web site.

In 1998, Kanovsky joined Sen. John F. Kerry's (D-Mass.)'s office as chief of staff. She left a year later amid rumors that Kerry had selected a new top staffer without telling Kanovsky she had been fired.

In 1999, Kanovsky returned to HIT as executive vice president for finance and administration. She was named chief operating officer of the fund in 2001 and general counsel in 2008. There, she led efforts to invest in housing in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and in New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. "We're here, and we're going to invest," Kanovsky told the New Orleans Times-Picayune in January 2006.

Kanovsky also spearheaded an AFL-CIO effort to increase job opportunities for African-American men. She led a national program to help black men find jobs through a combination of training, placement programs and mentoring at 2,000 training centers across the country. "It really builds on the kinds of things the labor movement has done for a long time, which is find a way to take people, give them a skill set and put them on the road to a middle-class economic life," she said in November 2006.

Kanovsky was confirmed to serve as general counsel of HUD in May 2009.

The Issues

Kanovsky believes that housing policy has the power to transform neighborhoods, encourage economic development and significantly improve lives. But she says this is only possible if regulators, think tanks, developers and financial institutions unite to develop coherent legislation.

At HUD, Kanovsky will work closely with Secretary Donovan and his top aides to ensure that policies are legally sound. But she said she will also push for progressive policies that ensure every American has "not just a house, but a home."

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The Network

Though Kanovsky worked on the Hill only briefly, she served in the offices of high-powered senators such as now-Vice President Joseph R. Biden and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). Her background in labor means Kanovsky also has close alliances to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and HIT Chair Richard Ravitch.

At HUD, Kanovsky will work closely with Secretary Shaun Donovan and Deputy Secretary Ron Sims . In a statement released shortly after Donovan's selection, Kanovsky called him "a champion of affordable and workforce housing" who would "lead HUD and make it a housing department once more."

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