Dear Neighbors and Partners,
After nearly twelve years leading Housing Trust Silicon Valley, CEO Kevin Zwick will be stepping down on June 26th to take on the role of CEO of United Way Bay Area. This is a bittersweet moment as myself, the board, and the entire Housing Trust team will miss him.
Kevin leaves behind an organization that has grown its scope and impact far beyond where it began. He joined Housing Trust in the fall of 2008, just when the great recession was taking shape. He led the organization through the foreclosure crisis and the subsequent loss of redevelopment agencies. As the economy recovered he pivoted Housing Trust to help developers acquire land, help Bay Area residents realize their dream of home ownership through down payment assistance loans, and bring the homeless into homes. He led the organization into a stronger policy environment for affordable housing by helping lead efforts to pass local impact fees, Measure A in the County of Santa Clara, Propositions 1 and 2 in California, and Measure E in San Jose. He also co-founded Silicon Valley at Home in 2015 to advocate for affordable housing.
Through his tenure, Housing Trust has engaged more organizations and large employers in the fight for more affordable housing through initiatives like our TECH Fund which has simultaneously brought more large Bay Area employers to the imperative need to finance affordable housing and provided nonprofit developers with flexible financing that makes more homes possible. Kevin’s efforts have grown the organization from a staff of three with just over $27 million in total assets to a staff of 29 and growing with over $210 million in total assets, all to create over 20,000 homes.
The DNA of Housing Trust has always been based on innovative partnerships and rapidly adapting to change, and Kevin’s leadership helped establish a lasting infrastructure that will allow us to continue our mission. We believe safe, stable affordable housing opens the door to better living for everyone, and Housing Trust remains poised to scale up current solutions and deploy new ones.
“Serving as CEO of Housing Trust these past 12 years has been the singular most rewarding professional accomplishment in my life. I’m proud to have been able to bring together an amazing group of professionals who created an affordable housing organization that has had so much impact – creating more than 20,000 homes helping over 37,000 people live in one of most unaffordable regions in the world; creating new models of affordable housing finance that inspired some of the world’s largest companies to invest more than $117 Million through our TECH Fund and see their investment immediately start-up affordable housing; and work with so many partners in the community to bring about lasting positive change in affordable housing policies at the local, regional and state levels.”
“There is so much more work yet to be done, and I know Housing Trust is well positioned to continue to have even more impact in the future. I am grateful for all the people I’ve had the pleasure to work with these past 12 years, particularly our senior management team led capably by Julie Mahowald, Julie Quinn, Craig Mizushima and Fathia Macauley, our entire staff, our current Board of Directors, and to the founding board members who took a chance and entrusted this organization in my hands back in 2008. While I will be leaving as CEO, I will continue on as Housing Trust’s number one fan, and excited to see how Housing Trust helps create a better future for everyone who needs affordable housing in our community, which is needed now more than ever.” – Kevin Zwick, CEO, Housing Trust Silicon Valley
Chief Financial Officer Julie Mahowald, who helped lead Housing Trust’s most recent successes, will assume the role of Interim CEO on June 26th. Our twenty member strong Board of Directors, composed of representatives from the community, financial, technology, and housing sectors has already created a search committee to find a successor CEO. In the meantime, please join us in wishing Kevin well as he moves on and as Housing Trust continues to our next chapter.
Sincerely,
Craig Robinson