Dev is the Executive Director of the Housing Land Trust of Sonoma County and has served in that role since 2003. As someone who brings deep expertise as a housing developer and nonprofit sector leader, her work centers on creating affordable homeownership opportunities for local low- and moderate-income families. At her heart, Dev is a problem-solver.
Seeking to help families secure a home, she set out to find creative and innovative strategies that could offer families a chance to both provide safe and stable shelter, and build wealth. To do so, Dev has been at the cutting of the community land trust model that aims to lower the entry costs for families and allow them to start accruing equity sooner.
For almost two decades, Dev has helped build enduring partnerships with local communities throughout Sonoma County to produce and preserve permanently affordable owner-occupied homes.
Dev’s expertise in the community land trust sector is highly regarded and regularly in demand. As a consultant with Burlington Associates, a national community land trust consultancy, Dev has advised communities across the country on how to start their own community land trusts by sharing her insights and the field’s best practices.
When asked why housing is important to her, Dev will tell you that housing is a vehicle to break the cycles of poverty, that it’s an opportunity to build crucial generational assets, and that it can help change the trajectory of children’s futures. Each of those statements is a fact – the evidence supports that. But if you listen to Dev closely, she is most animated and passionate when talking about the individual families she’s helped. Dev’s work at the Housing Land Trust is about ensuring that all of us, regardless of socioeconomic status, have a chance to be rooted in the community and that families feel like they truly have a place to call home.
Generation Housing is fortunate to have Dev as a board member whose leadership, talent, and an unwavering commitment to helping families secure housing is an asset from which we all benefit.