Margaret Downey is founder and president of The Freethought Society, based in Pocopson, Pa. She is also a secular celebrant, performing life-cycle ceremonies for nonbelievers.

Austin Dacey is a writer and human rights activist in New York City who serves as a representative to the United Nations for the International Humanist and Ethical Union. He is the author of The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life (2008).

ARISE includes 12,000 members of congregations and community groups around Albany, N.Y. Affordable housing is one of its goals, and it is promoting a regional housing plan.

Robert Boston is senior policy analyst for Americans United for Separation of Church and State and assistant editor of its monthly magazine, Church & State.

Derek E. Broomes is president and chief executive officer of Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement, which has developed more than 2,000 units of affordable housing. It is a diverse, interfaith coalition of more than 90 congregations.

Joseph Levine is a philosophy professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His essay “From Yeshiva Bochur to Secular Humanist” is included in Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life (2007).

Faith in New York, which is affiliated with PICO, is involved in affordable housing.

Greg Epstein serves as the humanist chaplain at Harvard University and is the author of Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe (2009). He holds master’s degrees in Judaic studies and theological studies and has been ordained as a humanist rabbi. The Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard is “dedicated to building, educating, and nurturing a diverse community of […]

The Rev. Floyd Flake is a former Democratic congressman from New York and pastor of the 15,000-member Greater Allen AME Cathedral of New York in Jamaica, Queens. In the summer of 2007 the church completed the Greater Allen Cathedral Affordable Housing Residence, which has 54 apartments for low-income tenants.