President of Sacramento's St. HOPE Corporation and former NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson keynoted the Fifth Annual Berkeley Conference on Housing and Urban Policy, held on Thursday, March 25th, 2004, at the Andersen Auditorium in the Haas School of Business on the Berkeley campus. 

This annual conference attracts an audience of over 300 community development professionals, government officials, faculty and students.

The conference featured speakers from the development, governmental, and nonprofit sectors discussing current housing and urban policy issues under the general theme, "Building the Promise:  Housing Assistance as Social Investment." In addition to the appearance of Kevin Johnson, conference panels examined social investment aspects of various housing assistance policies, including those programs targeting homelessness. Panels and presentations were conducted in facilitated roundtable fashion, affording ample opportunity for substantive exchange between speakers and audience members. Major presentations were delivered by Sandra Newman of Johns Hopkins University on "Housing Assistance as Social Investment: What Do We Know?" and Sam Davis of UC Berkeley on "Designing for the Homeless."