ELLEN BAXTER
Founder, Broadway Housing Communities
Executive Director 1983-2023

Ellen Baxter has been dedicated to redressing the inhumanity of inequality and homelessness in New York City and nationally for more than 40 years.

It’s fair to say that Ellen discovered her life’s work when she was a student at Bowdoin College, where, studying psychology, she became interested in the movement against institutionalizing the mentally ill. When she graduated, a fellowship from the Watson Foundation allowed her to spend a year in the Belgian city of Geel, a community known since the Middle Ages for their remarkable care for individuals with mental illness. Upon Ellen’s return to the US in the late 70s, she moved to New York City, where a radical policy of deinstitutionalization had triggered a homeless crisis on a staggering scale.

Working for the Community Service Society of New York, Ellen and her colleague Kim Hopper resolved to document the state and scope of homelessness in the city. Private Lives/Public Spaces, their study detailing the experiences of some of the 36,000 people living on the streets of New York City, galvanized public and media attention.

Their work led Ellen and Kim, with other activists, to form the Coalition for the Homeless. In 1979, the group filed a landmark class action lawsuit - Callahan v Carey - against New York State and New York City. Following two years of litigation, a consent decree in 1981 enshrined the legal right to emergency shelter for homeless men in New York City. City-run shelters soon opened, including the notorious Fort Washington Armory, across the street from where Ellen was living. There, 1,460 men slept on cots on the massive drill floor, in conditions that spread disease, crime, and despair.

As determined as Ellen and her fellow advocates were to protect the right to emergency shelter, they also knew that it fell short of the basic human right to decent, permanent housing.  While conducting research for Private Lives/Public Spaces, Ellen met three Franciscan friars who were providing support services to mentally ill adults living in a single room occupancy hotel.  Although it was clear to Ellen that a secular version of the Franciscans' model might form the basis for a solution to the growing homeless crisis, the complex infrastructure of advocacy, public policy and funding that would make that vision possible was not yet in place.

In 1983, Ellen formed a nonprofit organization, the Committee for the Heights-Inwood Homeless - now Broadway Housing Communities (BHC) - to demonstrate that permanent affordable housing, paired with services for those who need them, was the most effective - and most cost-effective - solution to the homeless crisis.

With the support of advocacy partners including Tony Hannigan at the Center for Urban Community Services (CUCS), Ellen began the path breaking work of engaging public and private resources to realize her vision. On May 25, 1984, the State of New York issued a check in the amount of $282,944.00, payable to the Committee for the Heights-Inwood Homeless, to support the purchase of a vacant building in Upper Manhattan, the first instance of government funding for supportive housing and a turning point in efforts to address the homeless crisis. BHC’s first building, The Heights, opened in 1986, providing permanent supportive housing for 55 single adults.

Driven by Ellen’s vision and indefatigable leadership, BHC continued to learn from the community it served. Housing was enriched with early childhood centers serving residents and the wider community, and cultural arts programs advanced and celebrated the diversity and inclusivity of Upper Manhattan neighborhoods that had suffered decades of neglect and disinvestment. Over four decades, BHC grew to develop and manage seven residential buildings in Washington Heights and West Harlem; two early childhood centers; three community art galleries; and a new cultural institution, the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling. Today, Ellen’s legacy is reflected in the 90% of tenants who remain stably housed, the children growing up in BHC housing who graduate from high school and enter college; and residents and members of the wider community who regularly engage with art and artists, enriching and empowering lives and futures.

The innovative quality of BHC’s work and Ellen’s leadership have been widely recognized in both the private and public sectors, including a Governor’s Award for Excellence in Housing (1994), a Banker’s Trust Award for Non-Profit Management (1993), a Citizen’s Housing & Planning Council Public Service Award (1994), the Robin Hood Foundation (2004), Resourceful Women (1998), and the Environmental Crusaders Award from West Harlem Environmental Action (2004). In 1994, Ellen received a Common Good Award from Bowdoin College, her alma mater. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Mount Holyoke in 2002 and from Bowdoin College in 2005. She is the recipient of a 2006 James A. Johnson Fellowship Award from the Fannie Mae Foundation and a 2008 Equity Champion honoree of the Educational Equity Center. In 2010, Ellen received the Neighborhood Activist Award from the New York Women’s Foundation. In 2011, Broadway Housing Communities became New York City’s 27th settlement house. In 2012, BHC’s Sugar Hill development received a prestigious national ArtPlace award for strategic community investment in the arts. Ellen currently serves on the Boards of St. Francis Friends of the Poor and Faith Ringgold’s Anyone Can Fly Foundation, and continues to be an active member of the Coalition for the Homeless Board of Trustees. Ellen was a founding member of the Corporation for Supportive Housing Board of Directors, serving for 21 years.

On November 28th, Ellen will be honored at Broadway Housing Communities’ 40th anniversary gala. Please contact Melissa Benson, mbenson@bhc.org, to learn how you can participate in this milestone celebration.