Elisabeth Risch is the Executive Director of Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) of Greater Cincinnati. She leads and oversees the organization’s mission to eliminate unlawful housing discrimination in the Cincinnati area. HOME advocates and enforces housing regulations for all protected classes to promotes stable and integrated communities. Previously, she was the Assistant Director at the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council (EHOC), where she managed fair housing and eviction defense programs and oversaw all operations. She led the agency’s fair housing education, outreach and advocacy work, including leading systemic investigations of housing discrimination and authoring widely circulated reports on issues of fair housing and segregation.

A nationally-recognized expert in fair lending and redlining, she helped found and led the St. Louis Community Reinvestment Alliance, a coalition working to hold banks accountable to investing in low income communities and communities of color, resulting in Community Benefits Agreements with banks that developed new products, services and investments totaling over $5 billion in impact. She is currently on the Board of Directors for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC).

Elisabeth has a B.A. in Sociology and International Development Studies from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, and a Masters in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis Brown School of Social Work, where she concentrated on policy and social and economic development. She loves cooking, exploring neighborhoods, hiking, and being outside with her family.