Q: Please share with us your professional background and your work in Planning and Development.

A: I’m a social worker. I have a master’s degree from the University of Chicago’s Crown School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. For other WPD members who have a background that departs from architecture, real estate, or urban planning, I hope that sharing my story can illustrate another way to be involved in Planning and Development.

My affordable housing career began in grad school.  I worked as a research assistant for the Mixed-Income Development Study (MIDS); it evaluated CHA’s Plan for Transformation (2000) on residents relocating from public housing to mixed-income developments and its anticipated vs.actual impacts on safety, resident relationships, and economic prospects.  You can read more about the results of the study in Integrating the Inner City by PIs Rob Chaskin and Mark Joseph, the PIs of the study. Working on MIDS was a seminal experience for me; I learned a variety of qualitative research methods and employ them today to ground the work I do at Full Circle.

Working at MIDS also informed my decision to work at the Chicago Housing Authority’s Resident Services division.  From the study, I learned about the division’s robust efforts to address systematic inequalities that existed for residents in public housing. At CHA, I worked for the Office of the Ombudsman for nearly seven years. In that role, I spoke with residents living in mixed-income developments on a daily basis and advocated on their behalf in addressing tenancy issues.

Q: Tell us more about Full Circle Communities and your role within the organization.

A: Full Circle Communities is a not-for-profit affordable and supportive housing developer based in Chicago’s West Loop, with properties in Michigan, Illinois and Iowa. We are a small organization, under 100 corporate and site staff, with a rapidly growing portfolio. We currently have over 25 properties operating or in various stages of development and currently serve individuals and families living in 1,600 units.  In addition to developing, owning, and operating affordable housing, our mission is to provide free and voluntary tenancy support services so that residents can meet their needs and goals.  We have an innovative funding model where we return 75% of our economics to providing resident services. 

When I first started at Full Circle, CEO Josh Wilmoth charged me with creating a Resident Services department. In many ways, it was a dream job, and I relished the autonomy, creativity, and experimentation.  4.5 years and many executed service agreements, policies, and processes later, we are now a small but mighty team of three. It has also been enriching working interdepartmentally with our real estate development, property management, and finance teams.

Q: What do you find challenging about the work you do?

A: The resident population we serve is broad: we serve seniors, families, individuals, persons with disabilities, persons who are veterans, persons experiencing homelessness including chronic homelessness, LGBTQ youth who experience homelessness, and residents who are fleeing domestic violence or intimate partner violence. It is challenging to try and provide services or respond to situations that are complex, ever-changing, and rooted in larger systemic issues.

Q: Tell us about your Professional Goals.

A: My goal these next few years is to continue growing the capacity of Full Circle’s Resident Services arm from a service delivery, funding, and staffing perspective so that it keeps pace with the organization’s growth. Another major goal is to develop a comprehensive resident services model across the portfolio that meaningfully incorporates residents and persons with lived experience in its decision-making and implementation. My team and I take an iterative approach and often pilot our policies to refine them and minimize unintended consequences to our residents and staff.   My favorite part of the work is that it’s interdisciplinary and inherently collaborative; I really enjoy learning from other organizations doing similar work. 

Q: Could you share with us your experience being involved in Women in Planning and Development?

A: I attended a morning version of WP+Drinks in the summer of 2017 and joined soon after that.  The WPD members that I met were unpretentious, inclusive, and open.  I was also drawn to the “instant network” of outstanding women.  My favorite events were the small networking lunches; I thoroughly enjoyed learning about women’s varied paths to become leaders at the top of their fields. It inspired me to serve as the professional development co-chair in 2019 alongside Claudia Rodriguez. We used our positions as an opportunity to invite women of color, from the LGBTQ community, and underrepresented backgrounds to serve as featured lunch guests. 

Q: Tell me about your time as President of Women in Planning and Development.

A: I served from August 2020 to July 2021, in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The Board did an admirable job of quickly pivoting the organization from exclusively in-person to remote while working hard to mitigate Zoom burnout. They also took it as an opportunity to try new programmatic and outreach opportunities.  As a result, we retained our membership numbers whereas similar organizations experienced a marked decline.   

The Black Lives Matter movement was also gaining significant momentum during that time. That Board term was focused on learning more about and incorporating anti-racism into our policies, procedures, and budget. As a commitment to prioritizing anti-racism, we included it as a monthly Board meeting agenda item to hold ourselves accountable to our members—a practice that continues to this day. 

During my tenure, my goal was to support the Board through these critical changes and ensure that we would become a better organization because of them. I thank former president Kathleen Day for encouraging me to serve and for so clearly seeing my leadership potential. I often think of what 49th Ward Alderperson Maria Hadden said at a small networking lunch about her own aldermanic run: “Sometimes it’s other people who recognize you have something to give, and sometimes that can happen before you recognize it yourself.”

Q: What advice would you close with?

A: I would encourage WPD members who have not served on the Board yet to consider doing it!  Personally, it can serve as a supportive laboratory for professional development and becoming the leader that you want to be.  Know that however you’re showing up in WPD, you are contributing to the legacy of a 30+ year organization founded on women supporting other women.