How A Global Collaborative Is Redefining Housing To Serve Real Lives With Elizabeth Glenn (USA)

What if housing could heal disconnection and build dignity at scale? We sit down with community catalyst Elizabeth Glenn to explore how the US–Africa Collaborative is uniting planners, doctors, architects, engineers, builders, financiers and educators to design human‑centred places that actually work for the people who live in them. This is a story of moving from silos to systems, and from projects to relationships that last.

Elizabeth Glenn traces her path from county government to global bridge‑builder and lays out a practical model for “smart villages” powered by culture, safety and care rather than gadgets. We talk about monthly knowledge‑exchange sessions, a Pan‑African City Symposium that blends research with practice, and a publishing pipeline that spreads lessons across continents. The Women’s Leadership Forum shows how circular, multi‑generational mentorship brings real‑world insights into design, while the Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Smart Villages and Human Settlements supports communities and governments with planning, finance and implementation.

We also tackle identity and belonging. The African diaspora spans the Americas, Europe, Asia and beyond, yet shared history is often buried under stereotypes and colonial aftershocks. Through Diaspora Dialogues, the collaborative opens space for reconciliation and partnership, aiming to unlock the diaspora’s vast economic power to fund inclusive housing and local enterprise. And with the new Homegrown Habitat International Design Competition, teams are challenged to design from the ground up, using local wisdom to create safe, walkable, resilient neighbourhoods where families can age in place and children thrive.

If you care about equitable housing, community health, women’s leadership, diaspora connection and practical urban innovation, this conversation offers clear on‑ramps and real hope. Subscribe, share with a friend who works in housing or public health, and leave a review to help more people find these ideas. Then visit usafricacollaborative.org to join the work.

Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King

Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....

Chapters

• 1:18 Welcome & Guest Introduction
• 1:52 The Birth Of US–Africa Collaborative
• 3:47 From Bureaucrat To Bridge Builder
• 6:04 Housing As A Human-Centred System
• 8:33 Multidisciplinary Boards And Partners
• 12:21 Smart Villages Start With People
• 16:30 Culture, Identity And Belonging
• 21:07 Programmes: Drop‑Ins, Symposium, Journals
• 24:49 Women’s Leadership Forum
• 27:17 Centre Of Excellence & Development Arm

Transcript

Dr Ariel R King: 0:41

Okay. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Business of Life with Dr. King. Today we have a very special guest, Miss Elizabeth Glenn. Welcome. Thank you. Great to be here with you today, Dr. King. Thank you. Could you please tell us our audience a little bit about yourself?

Elizabeth Glenn (USA): 1:15

And so we birthed the U.S. Africa Collaborative through the combined vision of a number of friends and colleagues who were in the housing development space. We just thought that we could do it better and that there should be a more centered, human-centered approach and ways of looking at sustainability and resilience and equity. And we thought if we could combine our forces and come up with an international nonprofit that brought together different sectors. So this was this was a dream for me. I'd been to Habitat 2, Habitat 3. I had the bug. But by profession, I was a bureaucrat. You know, I ran housing programs and homeless shelter operations programs and grant programs for county government and retired as a deputy director of the Baltimore County Planning Department. But which quite truthfully is not the most progressive organization. And so again, with colleagues coming together, dreaming together, and thinking, what do we do? And I'm thinking, what do I do with this next chapter of my life? That I want to bring meaning to not just my life, but to others. Having been in government, you're used to serving the public. And for me, who grew up, I'm a recovered Catholic, not a recovering, but a recovered Catholic. I believe that services is the rent that we pay for this time on earth. And I do believe that we have a responsibility for building stronger, more loving, human-centered communities. And so as a catalyst, this became a catalyst amongst two other gentlemen, two gentlemen, both from South Africa. And fast forward 2019, we started the business of doing the background work and looking at how we could pull this together, bringing together folks from different sectors. Because the problem with housing in some cases is that, and I'm saying all this about this is about me because this is my vision. But folks who work in housing, they work in housing. They don't talk to the people in healthcare necessarily unless they need something. They don't talk to the people in education or economic development. They don't talk to the university. People in university don't people don't talk to the practitioners. The professionals don't talk to the practitioners, and none of them talk to each other. So as we're as we're thinking about what what if, what if we can make this vision? What would it look like? And it would be like, let's bring all our friends together who touch the space of housing, who touch where people live, and who can then start looking at, oh, this is what's missing. We need to bring these people together so that we can do a better job of serving our families, our communities. And so this has been the dream of my life. But I'm a grandmother, a great-grandmother, I have a great-grandson who's four years old. And as I firmly step into my 70s, I feel like I want to take advantage of this experience, this wisdom, these ideas, this vision, and my ability to develop relationships. And so the three of us have now formed an organization where we have over 250 people on our distribution lists. And they're coming from universities all over the place, from as far away as Pakistan to Germany, to South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda. And we are bringing them together in a space where we can all share best practices. Because we're all at the table together. And listen, we'll make the table as big as it needs to be, because this is what vision building and transformation, this is how it starts. It starts with the with people coming together in a common vision. And not being bound by convention and by what society says we can and cannot do. So I probably said way more than I needed to.

Dr Ariel R King: 5:11

That was absolutely fabulous. You know, I love the fact that you basically said, you know what? I have time, I have energy, I have vision, and I'm going to find others that share that vision with me and come up with a collaborative collaboration that helps people all over the world. And what I really love about what you're saying is that you started local, but you are now global. Because housing is an issue for everyone. And I also love and I want to hear more about the combination because housing is not just putting someone in a place. As you said, you're looking at health care, you're looking at physical health, mental health, sometimes spirituality, you're looking at other issues that have to do with social, um, environment, uh, community support. And it's more than just housing. So can you talk more about that? I think that's so not just innovative, but so perceptive. And I believe that that's what we need all over the world. It's also intentional. It really is.

Elizabeth Glenn (USA): 6:08

Like I said, having having been in the career in a career for that has spanned decades, I'm, you know, I'm 71. My next birthday, I'll be 72 years old. You know, you can see, you can see where people make mistakes and who's missing at the table. And and funding all these different programs that we got to fund, you can you actually can see how these puzzles fit together, even though when you're when you're doing your own lanes work, you really don't see how all of these pieces fit. But I could begin to see how this whole puzzle fit together. So we have been intentional about bringing in planners, urban designers, architects, engineers, builders. We have we have two medical doctors as part. Oh, my board member itself is just a feast of talent. We have the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Vice Chancellor of Law and Management that operates the business schools. We have a gentleman from the University of Fort Hare, for example, that is the school where Desmond Tudu and Nelson Mandela were educated, as well as a few African kings. And so, in looking at the universities, we wanted to have universities that participated that had a rich and robust presence. So we have a number of them that are in South Africa, including the University of South Africa. We've just recently brought in the University of Witwatersrand. We have uh the Nelson Mandela University, where we're going to be hosting our 2026 Pan-African City Symposium and Exposition, where we're going to bring together researchers, practitioners, professionals, and students. And it's multi-generational. We wanted to make sure that young emerging professionals and practitioners and educators could have older, more experienced, and wise people that can also not just mentor them, but coach them through their careers. So we want to build this seamless transitioning pipeline of people who understand that the business of building communities and human settlements is an organic process. It's not just, you know, bring in all these experts and tell folks how to live and what to do. It's bringing in truly people who know how to work from the ground up and educating us all in the process. So if architects are not talking to communities, how can they possibly design buildings that are suitable and human-centered and that address the needs of families, right? Whether it's the desire to age families in place so that there's a continuum of ability to live in a place, you know, not everybody wants to move around to find suitable housing. And so we we we've brought in builders, folks who know how to build. They're in the business of educating construction management, the future builders of the world. We bring in folks who are who are housing finance experts who can talk about how do we finance this. We bring in people who are who are versed in culture and community engagement. Because if we're really going to create smart villages, it's not the technology that makes those villages smart. It's it's harnessing the wisdom of the people who live there. Because that's how you're going to be responsive to building communities that work for people, not that work for architects or engineers or the planners. You know, they don't think about people and when they're planning these communities. Oh, they talk about walkability and then they talk about transit-oriented development, but they don't talk about how people age in place and where are the children really going to feel safe. And, you know, we've got a lot of gender-based violence in the world. How are women going to be safe in these communities? Because we know families, whether they're two-parent or one-parent, it's women typically who are making most of the decisions around families. They're the ones who are the most visible. You know, so we need these folks involved. We also need folks who are business developers, you know. So we know in some countries, particularly in Africa on the continent, you have unemployment rates that are greater than 50%. So clearly you're not going to be able to harness enough jobs to employ everybody. But if we look at how we can create business and tap into the innovation of people, again, that's the smartness we're talking about. So what we found on the continent is that people with less have learned how to do more. So they're very innovative. And some of the fintech and applications that have been developed, I mean, many of these young people in the rural communities are taking college classes on their phone. They figured out how to do it. That kind of innovation, that kind of, oh my gosh, that's that's that's motivation, that's grit, that's desire to be relevant and productive and to build a new world, to build a new Africa, is inherent and present in so many of the young people that we've met. So it's important for us to have young people. It's important for us to have folks in the middle who are in the middle of their careers and who are hoping to, you know, really build upon their foundation. So we bring all these people together. And we bring in the artisans because art is important to our soul. It's also important that it's present in our communities in a way that grounds people. Because if if without our culture and reminders of our culture, you know, we tend to kind of lose touch with who we are. And let's face it, there's a lot of black folks in the in, particularly in the United States, that are trying to figure out really who they are. So we've got that term American and we've got that term African. We're very American. We need to learn more about the African piece of us because that tapestry, that tapestry of culture and wisdom and knowledge and spirituality and groundedness is really important for us to be connected. So at the heart of all of this, Dr. King, this is the crazy rantings of an aging woman, a septigenarian, if you will, but there's a crazy notion to connect African Americans back to Africa, to connect folks in the African diaspora back to Africa. And the reason being we've had 400 years of interruptions, right? So we don't know. Oh well, well, I grew, you know, my parents, my people come from South Carolina. Like, no, your people come from West Africa or Central Africa. That's not where your people come from. Your chain didn't get broken just because they put you in chains. Your connection is deeper than that. And so one of the ways that we can do that, so you know, there's there's always a back end of the story, right? I want to bring the family together. And what better way to do it than through where we live and building on the places where we live. Because uh those four walls are not just a shelter that protect you from the elements, it's where the heart is, it's where you raise your children, you care for your elders, it's where you you entertain and welcome others in, it's where you grow. It's the first school for our children, is the home. And we have to be mindful of that, which means we also have to give support. So, how do we do that? You know, how do we create this create this living organism that we call community in an intentional way, shaped by people who really want to look at the human-centeredness of it? And that's what we're building, and we're doing it relationship at a time, Dr. Kim. I often say we're building this daisy chain of connected relationships so that we can create these circles within circles within circles. And that way we're gonna just envelop the whole globe at some point. And this, I hope, is the legacy I leave where those relationships continue to grow and expand. And so that they're there that people have a connection to this vision of creating human-centered, more humanistic places for people to live and grow and work and dream. Because without our dreams, you know, I feel that's how we connect to the ancestors, but it's also how we connect to our descendants.

Dr Ariel R King: 14:02

Exactly. I love the way that you said that, you know, it's uh, you know, it's a it's a dream, and it's not crazy. It takes people like yourself who decide that the status quo, what was, is not enough, and that you have the time, the energy, and even more importantly, you have the passion to bring together people to make it happen. And you know, you're talking about these circles, and first with the African-American community within America, the diaspora I'm all over to be connected to their African roots. And I'd like you to know that with all the young people that I've spoken to over the years, they're all having this issue, believe it or not. Even people within other countries of young people, and when I say young, I'm talking about 35 and under, so excuse me. Have a difficult time being attached to their culture, their language, even their names, have young people changing their names because they say, Oh, people can't pronounce it. Well, if you can't pronounce it, then they don't need to say it. But this idea that community, literally, community, what is community? It's a group of people that live and develop and grow, help each other help each other to grow, the community is the center. Could you tell us more about how you're building that community? I think it's so interesting and so important. And I know for a fact that this is going to spread in various parts of the world. Because the truth is, as all people, as human beings, we all need this. This is something that we need in our heart, our soul, and also physically in order to live well.

Elizabeth Glenn (USA): 15:30

So we have we have a few programs. We're an unfunded volunteer organization. So being resourceful is critical. But knowledge exchange is something that you can do for free. And the with the virtual abilities of Zoom and other virtual platforms, we can bring together all kinds of folks. So we do a monthly drop-in meeting where we bring together topical speakers, we invite folks to come in and to talk about new new innovations, new ways to do things, new business lines, and we and we do that monthly. And that's very helpful. That's the rich knowledge exchange. We have an annual event called the Pan-African City Symposium and Exposition, which is a dual format conference where we bring in researchers together with practitioners and professionals and community people, and we create a symposium and exposition where professionals, practitioners, students, retirees, educators can all be there together. And so we create this really dynamic event. We're underway with our call for papers. Last year we received 148 responses. We have a publisher that works with us to publish special journals. And this past year, we had a journal that was released that has been seen by over 50,000 people throughout the world, as far away as Russia, China, Australia, Canada, but all over the continent of Africa, all over Europe, Asia, people who are interested in these titles, because when we talk about sustainability and resilience and equality and equity and inclusion, inclusion being a very powerful word right there. So that's a very big initiative for us. It's also a way to bring all the family together. And so it really does feel like a family reunion, but some of it's very scholarly, and we make sure we build in fun and we build in culture. And then another piece that's really important to us and we're is our women's leadership forum, where we're bringing women together, and this is multi-generational, multi-sector. And we we come up with a focus around, you know, how we want to work together, but we have leaders, and as women leaders, it's not hierarchical, it's circular. It's again, we operate in these circles where everybody is a leader. So that's why that's called the Women's Leadership Forum. This past year we had a dynamic engagement at our symposium. We'll have another one next year. They meet regularly, they talk informally, but they have a formal purpose. So they have, right now I shouldn't be saying it, but they have done some intentional work to make sure that women's issues are going to be raised in the context of this seven-day event that we're going to be putting on at Nelson Mandela University. So that's integrated into our work. We also last this past year launched the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Smart Villages and Human Settlements. This will be our development arm. This is going to be the arm that we will work with local communities, governments, institutions, organizations to help them design these communities of the future to create these smart and sustainable villages. And when we talk about smart villages, we're not just talking about villages in rural areas. We're talking about neighborhoods, cities, towns, places where people live. So it's it's it's a it's a term, but it has much greater meaning than the term would imply. So that center, we are hoping to work with some in particular with South Africa around some smart village development. They are they have established that as a priority within their Department of Human Settlements. The last piece that we're just starting to develop is our African diaspora, our African Diaspora Forum, which we are focusing that organization or that program on reconciliation and unification, because there is this disconnect between African Americans, and not to mention the rest of the African diaspora, which is spread out all over the place. As African Americans, we know about the Caribbean and we know about some places in Latin America, but the diaspora goes as far away as Asia, Russia, Australia, it's all over the world. We were dispersed everywhere. And so people think about the slave trade that brought us to uh Americas, but there the Arabian slave trade dispersed Africans all over the place. And India participated in that slave trade as well. So there's so anyway, so being able to connect with them and address some of the issues that African Americans and African nationals and immigrants have had in the Caribbean, where they they don't have that closeness. They don't have that connection because they're not dealing with their shared ancestry. They're dealing with the effects, let's face it, of colonial. Colonialism. And while America has not been classed as a colonizer, in reality, when you look at Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and Guam and some of these other territories that we have influence over, it is kind of colonial. So in looking at that and in trying to compensate for that, the African diaspora dialogues is a way for us to have those conversations. Because if we don't talk about it, we can't address it. Sometimes we don't even know that that's part of the problem. Because I hear some of my friends, my colleagues, family members, oh, those Nigerians. Oh, I didn't want to know that I had Nigerian DNA. I don't like those people. I'm like, why don't you like those people? You don't know Nigeria. You just you just listen to stereotypes, and maybe you've had a few personal relationships. And so we have people from the Virgin Islands who think, oh, African Americans are just lazy. They won't work. Look at all this work we do. And so you have all these misconnections that, you know, so we got to get the family together. And that African diaspora dialogues, remember, that was the motivation in the beginning, is to bring us together. So the diaspora dialogues are important. So one of the things we hope to do, Dr. King, is expand our conversations into the global south in the Americas. We've got 120 cousins in Brazil, 120 million cousins in Brazil, the largest, the largest settlement of African-descended people outside of the continent of Africa. And in the meanwhile, while we're doing all of this, let's also help educate African Americans about what Africa is really about. So that's also a piece of this. Cultural exchange, knowledge exchange. You know, let's let's let our children know, dear Africa is 54 countries. Yes. They, you know, the African Union is trying to unite them, but it's not just one country, it's not one language, it's a million languages. It's and it's a million different governments. And you've got tribal governments and you've got regular governments, and you've got colonial influences and you've got tribal influences, and you've got political influences that are crazy. But it's all part of our diaspora. And once we understand that, maybe we can start really joining hands. Really, those circles become even more meaningful. Not to mention leveraging the resources of the diaspora, which is over 13 trillion in GDP. Can we pull that money together, people? Think about that. $13 trillion gross domestic product of African-descend people in this globe. And we can't harness that. Come on. So yeah, we got to bring the family together. And I hope that this is a platform that continues to grow. And I think because we have such a family-like relationship, and I think that happens through our symposium and through our monthly drop-in meetings. We are so excited. So we introduced something completely new this year. We're introducing the Smart Futures, the Global Housing Forum Homegrown Habitat International Design Competition, where we are asking folks to look at your communities. Right? Our future is going to be grown out of our local communities. The homegrown habitat is where we're going to build these smart villages, these smart communities, these inclusive, human-centered, well-designed places for us to live happily, healthily, inclusively, and places that we belong and we feel welcome. So that we're excited about. It kicked off. I apologize for not having the exact date. Our symposium will have its submissions are due by January 16th. I remember that because we've already started getting submissions, but we're very excited because we are looking at how we harness this expertise, these resources in a more thoughtful, integrated, organic, and brilliant way. And the collaborative, I think, is a collab as a catalyst for us to do that.

Dr Ariel R King: 24:57

Absolutely. Absolutely. May I ask how we only have several more minutes left. So how can people find you and get in touch with the collaborative? This is so important. You are doing so much. It's so rich in what you have to offer. How can our audience find you and find what you're doing at the U.S. Africa Collaborative?

Elizabeth Glenn (USA): 25:15

Well, you can find us at our website, which is HTTPS colon forward slash, forward slash, USAfrica Collaborative.org. No dots, straight run on. But we do have a site. It's very informative. There's information about the upcoming Pan African City Symposium and Exposition. There's also information about the global futures, global housing futures competition, design competition. We have to update it soon with more focus on our women's leadership forum. But that is a way to get women involved, women leaders involved, and women who just aspire to be leaders. And believe me, in the heart of every woman is a leader. Right? As I always say, if you want to get something done, ask a woman. Ask a woman. So yeah, so they can reach us that way. Um you can also reach us by sending me an email. And I'm at elisabethscottglyn at gmail.com. Two N's, two t's, no dots. I would give you my phone number, but I'm not going to do that.

Dr Ariel R King: 26:26

No, that's okay. It's international. And we're going to be putting this when it comes out. We're going to make sure that all of these links are are available with within the LinkedIn uh description. So thank you. Wonderful.

Elizabeth Glenn (USA): 26:37

And yes, and you can find me on LinkedIn. I have a busy profile. But I'm not one of those people with tens of thousands of followers. I'm just, my family is intentional and selected. But join me.

Dr Ariel R King: 26:50

I want to thank you so much for being with us today. What an incredible conversation. And to our audience, remember, if I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, then when? And that was by the great philosopher Hillel. And I've added, if not me, then who? Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you to our guest, Miss Elizabeth Glenn. Thank you.

Elizabeth Glenn (USA): 27:18

Thank you for having me.