Homesight board of directors spotlight
The HomeSight Board of Directors guides the organization’s mission by providing strategic leadership, ensuring financial stability, and supporting key initiatives in affordable housing. Their oversight and expertise help HomeSight address community needs and build strong partnerships.
TERRY MILLER
Terry Miller is used to leading. A top realtor in the region, she’s built her business on a foundation of returning customers and personal referrals. Terry has applied these leadership principles to her volunteer work at HomeSight, serving as president twice during her 18 years of volunteer service. Terry Miller’s leadership has been inspirational not just to the organization, but to her professional colleagues at the National Association of Realtors. Terry was recognized last year with the organization’s Good Neighbor Award in the Seattle area. As Terry Miller transitions out of her role as board president this summer, we asked her to reflect on her tenure, and what her service to HomeSight meant to her.
Four questions for Terry
Q: What do you love about volunteering as a board member at HomeSight?
Everything we do! Our board sets Homesight’s mission and works with the staff to meet the goals and objectives we set to further that mission. We have excellent staff, a great executive director and a committed board. We aim to grow equity in our city—and everywhere. Our counseling, consulting, lending, and building efforts are meeting the constant challenge our expensive city presents. To do this, we work with families to buy and own their homes, provide much-needed reparative lending to support Black/BIPOC developers, build neighborhoods and local businesses, and advocate for housing justice. Through all these efforts, we are helping our neighbors build generational wealth.
Q: When you look back on your term as board president, what makes you most proud?
We can now say, proudly, that our loan programs are available statewide, and we’ve created and developed strong partnerships with government entities as well as private philanthropists. Because of these partnerships, we are able to provide more people with down-payment assistance to help more people reach the financial stability homeownership provides.
We’re also meeting the needs of our neighbors, bolstering local business owners and fostering community development. HomeSight’s Plate of Nations is an incredible example of this. This annual restaurant promotion event has grown every year and has brought millions in economic impact to the community. We have a gift in the diversity of our community, and to celebrate this, we host a number of events to build community connections, inspire community action, and promote inclusion. They’re fun, too. HomeSight rocks. We constantly try to be part of the solution, and it works
Q: What challenges did HomeSight face during your tenure?
Greater Seattle’s exorbitant housing prices, which have generated more need for financial assistance and less housing inventory—think supply and demand—in the price ranges regular, working people can afford. Also, higher interest rates have made it more difficult to borrow—and it costs more to buy less. We’ve been grateful for public and private partnerships that have helped us navigate these rough seas.
Q: How did this experience impact you?
My volunteer experience has been a wonderful way for me to give back and to learn. I’ve learned about other cultures, and the pressures impacting families who are just trying to live and work in a world that’s gotten too expensive. My interactions with the amazing staff members and the many committees and thought groups I’ve joined have opened my eyes to more than I ever thought I could know. Again, we do good work!
Q: What would you like to see in the future, for HomeSight, and the region?
An equitable world, to quote the guru John Lennon, ‘where all people can live as one.’
