Joyce B. Siegel

From 2009 to date, she has served on the Forum condominium board where she has focused on boosting the association's energy efficiency. As with Scotland, she has leveraged the challenges of and learning in this process to impact energy policy in Montgomery County and in Maryland. This work, primarily focused on issues related to master-metered buildings, led to a 2013 award from the Maryland Clean Energy Center.

She worked for the Montgomery County Sentinel where she created its Newspaper in the Classroom program and, in 1977, published The Sentinel Newspaper in the Classroom.

Siegel was appointed as a commissioner of HOC in 1969. She resigned that position at the request of its director, Bernie Tetrault, to become HOC's community relations officer. In her time at HOC, Siegel was involved in many of the developing initiatives to better strengthen and enable better quality and greater availability of low-income (public) housing in Montgomery County and nationwide. For example, she fostered the first tax-equity swap that led to taxable entities providing financing for public housing developments.

The Save Our Scotland effort and the resulting external engagement sought to support the Scotland community. For example, Siegel helped formed and participated in tutoring in the community's church basement. By 1966, this was open three nights a week and half the community's school children attended each session. When this started, this was almost solely assistance from outside the community but the outside volunteers supported Scotland parents as they took over supervising the tutoring.

As this process went on, Siegel worked to mobilize a broader community to assist Scotland residents. She formed "Save Our Scotland" and a formal committee structure created in February 1965 (with Scotland residents (such as Geneva Mason), ministers, and Siegel on its board of directors). Save Our Scotland built heavily on faith communities.

Soon after moving to Bethesda, MD, in 1962, Siegel became aware of the Black community of Scotland along Seven Locks Road in Potomac, Maryland. Formed by former slaves in the 1880s, Scotland continued to suffer from segregation and lack of public services (no sewage, running water, trash collection). The housing stock was in poor shape (with the majority of buildings condemned by the county). Land speculators, with increasing housing developments, were seeking to buy out Scotland's residents. And, the county was creating and expanding Cabin John Regional Park and sought Scotland community land. In fall 1964, Scotland's future "looked bleak" as the Inverness North townhouse development would pave over the stream that was the community's primary water source.

Siegel created the West Fernwood Civic Association in 1962. She served as president of the Interfaith Housing Coalition.

Siegel played a critical role in the revitalization of the Scotland community in the mid-1960s, founded and served as board member of multiple community organizations, and served as a board member of the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC). She worked as a Head Start teacher, on the Sentinel newspapers staff (and created its Newspaper in the Classroom program), and on the HOC staff. She attended Smith College and Towson State College. She has a MPA from the University of Southern California (USC) and a BA in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is married to Alan R. Siegel and has three grown children.

After many years of extended struggle, negotiation, and planning, the Scotland Development Corporation took control of land and built 100 townhouses (25 owned and 75 rental) on ten acres in the late 1960s and early 1970s to replace the deteriorating existing housing stock.

Joyce Bernhardt Siegel (born June 28, 1933, daughter of Maurice and Ruth Bernhardt) is a Montgomery County, Maryland, community leader and activist primarily in the area of equal opportunity housing.