The Trenton Times published the following article on April 8, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness executive director to retire, focus on vacant housing initiatives

By Mike Davis/The Times 
on April 08, 2013 at 2:35 PM

TRENTON — One of the county’s top homeless advocates will retire at the end of June, the Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness announced today.

Herb Levine, the alliance’s executive director since 2007, will leave full-time work to advocate for redeveloping vacant and abandoned housing in the urban core, the alliance said in a news release.

As executive director, Levine over saw the alliance’s “New Direction for Ending Homelessness in Mercer County,” a 2009 plan that focused on ending homelessness by proposing new models of permanent housing, echoed in the federal government’s plan one year later.

“Under Herb’s leadership, our community has gone through a momentous change, moving from a sheltering model to a rehousing model,” said alliance chairman Cliff Goldman.

A partnership of government, business and nonprofit stakeholders, the Mercer Alliance is an advocate for state and local policy changes to end homelessness.

Levine has also served as secretary of the New Jersey Advocacy Network to End Homelessness, and chair of the Mercer County Reentry Task Force and Mercer Housing Developers’ Advocacy Team, in addition to working with the Trenton Neighborhood Restoration Campaign.

“Because of our work as an alliance and Herb’s leadership, we are shortening the amount of time that individuals and families spend being homeless,” said Marygrace Billek, the county’s human services director. “Through the Mercer Alliance’s work, we have created a common vision and implemented national models for housing the homeless.”