Solomon Greene

Solomon Greene plays a leading role in developing the vision and strategy for the institute’s Land and Communities impact area, which includes the organization’s Urban Sustainability and Equity and Opportunity teams. He also helps to oversee the quality, coherence, and coordination of the Lincoln Institute’s work within and across impact areas, centers, and geographies to create lasting impact in the communities the institute serves.

Greene was appointed by President Biden to lead HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) in July 2022. PD&R supports policy development and implementation across HUD with rigorous research and market analysis; data collection, sharing, and management; demonstration projects and innovation initiatives; international engagement and exchanges; and technical assistance for state and local governments. In this role, he led a team of over 200 economists, social scientists, data scientists, engineers and other researchers and policy experts, and an annual budget of over $180 million. He also served as HUD’s lead policy expert on housing supply, land use, tenant protections, AI and emerging technologies, innovative building technologies, sustainable and equitable development, and climate resilience.

Prior to joining HUD, Greene held leadership positions in research institutions, affordable housing and community development organizations, local and federal governments, and philanthropy. He has published extensively on a broad range of topics, including data innovation, civic technology, land use law, urban planning, and housing policy in the U.S. and abroad. For over seven years, Greene was a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, where he led research on inclusive growth in cities, housing policy and land use regulations, and applications of data and technology to improve urban governance, neighborhood revitalization, regional development and access to economic opportunity. Before joining the Urban Institute, Greene served as a senior adviser at HUD, where he helped develop policies to reduce segregation and expand neighborhood choice, and he served as HUD’s principal adviser on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Greene has also served as a senior program officer at the Open Society Foundations, an adjunct professor at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, a law fellow at NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, a litigation associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson, and a law clerk on the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He served on the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition Team and the U.S. National Committee for Habitat III. He also served on the board of directors for the National Housing Law Project, the American Bar Association COVID-19 Task Force Committee on Evictions, and the advisory board for Up for Growth. Mr. Greene received his BA from Stanford University, his MCP from the University of California, Berkeley, and his JD from Yale Law School.