Celebrate NLIHC’s 2025 Leadership Awards Honorees: Senator Tina Smith, Susan Thomas, Mac McCreight, and Rob Robinson!

Join NLIHC in honoring our 2025 Housing Leadership Awards recipients: Senator Tina Smith (D-MN), Susan Thomas, Mac McCreight, and Rob Robinson. The NLIHC Housing Leadership Awards celebrate individual leaders and organizations for their outstanding contributions to affordable housing for those most in need. This year’s awardees will be recognized at NLIHC’s Annual Housing Leadership Awards Reception at the Hilton Capitol Hill Hotel in Washington, D.C. on March 26, 2025.  


2025 NLIHC Leadership Awards Honorees

Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) will receive the Edward W. Brooke Housing Leadership Award for her incredible leadership in advocating for housing justice. As Chair of the Housing, Transportation, and Community Development Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Senator Smith has worked across the aisle to help improve access to safe, decent, and affordable housing in communities across the nation, including in rural and Tribal areas. 

Susan Thomas, President of the Melville Charitable Trust, will receive the Sheila Crowley Housing Justice Award for her tireless efforts to raise awareness about the affordable housing crisis and solutions to homelessness. Susan was instrumental in the creation of the Fund for Housing and Opportunity, a national non-partisan, cross-sector funder collaborative focused on tackling the housing affordability crisis by supporting advocacy, narrative change work, and efforts to scale effective practices at the intersection of housing, health, economic mobility, and education. 

Mac McCreight, attorney for Boston Legal Services, will receive the Dolbeare Lifetime Service Award, for his work in legal services for more than 40 years, primarily at Greater Boston Legal Services. Throughout his career, Mac has provided training and written materials for the National Housing Law Project and educated countless legal services attorneys. 

Rob Robinson, Community Organizer and Activist (NYC), will receive the inaugural Loraine Brown Resident Leader Award. The award honors a person living in subsidized housing who has shown dedication to helping tenants, people experiencing homelessness, and their community. Rob will receive the award for his strong commitment to advocating for the rights and well-being of tenants within the public and assisted housing community. His work focuses on changing people’s fundamental relationship to land and housing. 


Recognize these outstanding leaders by making a donation to NLIHC in their honor!

Donate to NLIHC in these leaders’ honor as an individual or as an organization. 

Your donation will be recognized in the Leadership Awards Celebration program, and your contribution will support NLIHC’s mission to achieve racially and socially equitable public policy that ensures people with the lowest incomes have quality homes that are accessible and affordable in communities of their choice. 

Make a donation to honor these outstanding leaders! 

Register for NLIHC’s 2025 Leadership Awards Reception!