Risking House and Home, Managing Catastrophe |
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06 March 2006 ATTENTION: Real estate, housing and business writers; reporters covering disaster preparedness; government writers and editors |
Contact:
Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations
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WHAT
"Risking House and Home: Managing Catastrophe in the American Metropolis," the 7th annual Berkeley Conference on Housing and Urban Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Participants will explore preparedness for future disasters, coordination of catastrophe response and managing emergency shelter needs, disaster recovery and the disadvantaged, and policies guiding government financial response to disaster. The event will commemorate the anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, and address critical issues rekindled by Hurricane Katrina and other recent disasters.
WHEN
9 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Friday, March 24.
WHERE
Andersen Auditorium, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. The Haas School is located on Gayley Road, on the east side of campus, near Memorial Stadium.
WHO
Mary Comerio, a UC Berkeley professor of architecture and noted expert on disaster and recovery policies, will deliver the keynote address. Lawrence Vale, a professor of urban studies and planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will talk about disaster recovery and the disadvantaged.
DETAILS
The conference honors Don Terner, a pioneer in affordable housing and the founding director of the Bridge Housing Corporation, who died 10 years ago this April in the airplane crash in Bosnia which also took the life of then-U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown.
Reporters wishing to attend the conference should contact Mercedes Arevalo-Romero, conference coordinator for UC Berkeley's Program on Housing and Urban Policy, at (510) 642-0891 or romero@haas.berkeley.edu. Public registration (tickets are $75) is at http://urbanpolicy.berkeley.edu.