What I Do and Why

I've had great opportunities in my career and life to work and serve in the communities where I live and currently, across the country.  I want to talk about some of what I have done for a living, what I've learned, and how I think these experiences have been and would be reflected by me as a Municipal Councilor.

2012 Town Park Playground Build; it was just a little rainy!

I have always been interested in public service and the nuts and bolts of government. In college, I interned in my Congressman's Washington, DC office. I graduated from Gordon College in Wenham, MA with a major in Political Studies and spent the summer of my senior year traveling with a study group to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, back when the Soviet Union still existed. 

From there, I went to graduate school at the University of Virginia for Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Religion and Literature. Before and after graduate school, I spent time working with homeless individuals and families here on the North Shore of Boston. On a daily basis, I was working with individuals and families who were struggling with poverty, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, addiction, systematic marginalization, and high housing costs. I ended up pursuing a career in social work and community development, rather than in teaching.

In 2001, I started working in Boston for an organization that worked with local governments and non-profits around New England to plan, develop and manage supportive housing for very low income people living with HIV/AIDS.

'Green' roof, Whipple Riverview Place, Ipswich MA

I also joined the Board of a North Shore affordable housing organization, the North Shore Housing Trust (which eventually merged with Harborlight Community Partners, in Beverly). While I was involved, we completed a affordable home-ownership project in Gloucester and the preservation and renovation of a historical Ipswich property as a 'green' elderly affordable housing building, complete with a soil roof, to prevent run-off into the Ipswich River.

Revision Urban Farm, Dorchester MA

Most recently, I worked as the Director of Housing for a large sheltering organization in Boston, Victory Programs, where I oversaw an urban farm. two family shelters (one, for mothers in recovery), transitional housing, and permanent housing facilities, serving hundreds of homeless and formerly homeless households a year. And I managed several million dollars in annual budgets and more in capital assets.

Now, I'm working remotely from home for a company (Cloudburst Group) that supports local and state government around the country in planning and running effective systems of services and housing for homeless and at-risk of homelessness households.

So, I tried out academia and it was not for me. What was 'for me' was digging in with people to learn about their goals and their challenges. Working with them as they navigated forward. Changing systems and resources to be more responsive to the needs of the community and its more vulnerable members. Looking at what 'is' and being a part of developing lasting solutions ('what can be'). I've learned that healthy, sustainable communities are made up of many parts and that it takes a lot of care and attention to keep them healthy. I've learned the importance of operating from your principles and of being willing to adapt those principles, the more you know and learn. And finally, I know that the number one asset that a community has going for it is its own caring and engaged citizens. Whether it's working on a zoning ordinance, helping build a playground or trail bridge, or digging through budgets and audits, it is that care and engagement that I bring to the table and have to offer.