Home Today, Home Tomorrow: Innovative Financing and Capacity Building Strategies for Housing Preservation: Part 2

Felix is the Vice President of Business Development at MidPen, where he is responsible for launching new developments, which includes site identification, property acquisition, project conceptualization, financial feasibility analysis, and building strong relationships with partners and the community-neighborhoods of proposed developments. Prior to MidPen, Felix was a senior manager of business development and senior project manager at another nonprofit housing development organization, where he completed 250 units of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) housing from start to finish and initiated another 550 units of future pipeline developments. He started his affordable housing career as a Program Specialist for the City of Santa Rosa’s Department of Economic Development and Housing. He has strong interest in community development and green buildings, and is a Build It Green Certified Green Building Professional. He serves on the Board of East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO).

Kristen has concentrated in affordable housing and community development for over 30 years. She has spent the past 19 years in San José’s Housing Department on policy, programs, and transactions to produce and preserve affordable homes and prevent displacement. Previously, Kristen worked in affordable housing lending for Bank of America, made grants for affordable housing with the Federal Home Loan Bank, consulted for HUD and other public agencies at Price Waterhouse, and was a legal assistant and a researcher. She serves on the Board of Directors for the California Housing Consortium, the San Carlos Planning and Transportation Commission, and the Housing Leadership Council’s Public Policy Committee. She holds a MPP from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and an AB in Public Policy from Duke. Originally from upstate New York, she lives in San Carlos with her husband, teenage son, and tabby cat.

Emily joined Common Counsel Foundation in July 2022 as Program Strategist for the Community Ownership for Community Power Fund. Prior to this, she worked as the Program Officer for the Catalytic Capital Consortium, managing a grantmaking pool designed to spur learning and market development around catalytic capital to create a more just, inclusive and resilient world. Previously, Emily managed the grantmaking at the Crossroads Fund in Chicago, where all funding decisions were made by community members to support groups fighting for racial, social and economic justice in Cook County. She has a background in community organizing, and over the past decade has supported immigrant parent leadership in fighting for better schools in Chicago, drafted national policy resources around economic justice and community reinvestment at Community Change, and co-founded an intentional community that practiced radical resource sharing in Minneapolis. Emily co-founded Regenerative Finance, a project that worked to shift the economy by transferring control of capital to communities most affected by racial, economic and environmental injustice, and has served on the board of Resource Generation, which organizes young people with access to wealth and class privilege to leverage their resources towards the equitable distribution of land, wealth, and power. She has a Masters in Urban Planning with distinction from Harvard University and a BA in political science and international studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Geeta Rao serves as a Senior Director at Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) in the Northern California office where she oversees the programmatic work and co-manages operations. Geeta brings 20 years of experience in affordable housing and community development: program design and implementation, policy development, technical assistance, legislative advocacy, community organizing and planning, and coalition building. Geeta serves on the leadership team of Bay Area Housing for All (BAHA), an effort to place a $10-20 billion housing measure on the 2024 ballot for the San Francisco Bay Area. Geeta led Enterprise’s co-sponsorship efforts of AB 1487, which created the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) and co-authored The Elephant in the Region: Charting a Path for Bay Area Metro to Lead a Bold Regional Housing Agenda. Geeta lives in San Francisco and spends her time baking Midwestern treats, dancing at ODC Dance Commons, and (reluctantly) birdwatching across California with her two boys.