Laura Huth
Executive Director, Habitat for Humanity of Champaign & Piatt Counties
Former City Council member, City of Urbana
Founder & former Executive Director, Illinois Student Environmental Network

Laura Huth is the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of Champaign & Piatt Counties. The local Habitat affiliate was founded in 1991 and has to date built 36 homes for low-income families in the two-county region, helping to house 162 people in our community, including placing over 100 children into more stable housing environments. Habitat works with new homeowners to build their homes, and offers them for sale at cost through no interest loans.

In 1994, Laura founded the Illinois Student Environmental Network, a statewide training and capacity building organization for student environmental activists. She served as the group's director for 10 years, during which time its budget grew from $0 to close to $200,000, and membership rose from 60 to almost 4,000.

In early 2004, after nearly a decade with ISEN, Laura accepted the Executive Director position with the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

Laura also served on the Urbana City Council for nearly 8 years, elected twice to represent over 5,000 residents in Ward 5 in east Urbana. Ward 5 is the largest and most diverse of seven city wards, and includes an array of mixed housing types, people of various income levels, students, professionals, and laborers, the downtown of the community, an airport, the county seat buildings, and several factories. As a community leader, she has founded several grassroots community groups including ones to fight utility company plans to cut trees and preserve historic neighborhoods in the district which she represented. She was elected overwhelmingly twice, and has been a strong voice for smart growth and economic development, historic preservation, citizen participation in government, and downtown redevelopment during her tenure.

Her prior work experience includes posts at the Illinois Environmental Council conducting research and at DuPage County's Department of Environmental Concerns conducting environmental-legal research. Laura graduated from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science/Pre-Law and Sociology, and an emphasis in Geology.

Laboratory for Community and Economic Development | College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
University of Illinois Extension | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign