Today we’d like to introduce you to Brielle Salazar.
Hi Brielle, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up in Glendale with my parents and younger sister. In high school, I volunteered at the Glendale Free Health Care clinic, and this was my first front-line exposure to individuals experiencing homelessness. I was impressed by the compassionate care the volunteer doctors provided to treat wounds and manage conditions but frustrated that there wasn’t an immediate long-term solution to provide housing and truly address the patient’s needs. I continued volunteering for organizations benefiting low-income and unhoused clients during college and graduate school and focused on finance as a way to contribute to a solution. After graduating from USC’s Master’s in Public Policy program, I began working for the Los Angeles Community Development Authority. As an assistant project manager in the Housing Division, I gained experience with loan documents that secure public funds to affordable housing projects. These public dollars leverage private construction loans, and I later gained private sector affordable housing experience with City Community Capital, performing due diligence on these larger loans. I’m now back in the public sector and excited to be in a role that providing innovative housing solutions.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I am fortunate that I had a lot of family support that made my path possible, my mom was able to stay home while I was growing up. I have always wanted to pay it forward for households that were not afforded the same privilege. I’m also proud to be a minority woman in finance, which is still a very male-dominated space.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have worked in affordable housing for almost a decade and have experience as a public lender and a construction lender for a large bank. I am currently the Regional Housing Trust Manager for the San Gabriel Valley Regional Housing Trust (SGVRHT). The SGVRHT is a Joint Powers Authority with 25 member cities, formed in 2020 by SB751 (Rubio). In just 4 years has supported the development of over 800 units of affordable housing and 130 units of interim housing. The SGVRHT meets cities where they are in the housing development process and provides technical assistance and capacity building to advance projects. The SGVRHT provides access to funding cities cannot access alone and has successfully secured 4 consecutive awards of State funding through the Local Housing Trust Fund (LHTF) program. In 2022, we created a Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) to ensure sustainable funding for the region. Loan repayments are used to fund future projects, and the RLF will see its first repayment this summer. The SGVRHT is developing a 501(c)(3) affiliate to expand its programs and secure private funding and grant opportunities.
The SGVRHT partnered with the City of Baldwin Park to develop the first interim housing site in the SGV in 2021 and the family first tiny home interim housing site in the State in 2022. Also, in 2022, Operation Stay Safe opened in Montebello, providing 30 beds for higher acuity clients with additional onsite supportive services in partnership with the fire department. This spring, the Azusa Resource Center will open, representing the 4th interim housing site in the San Gabriel Valley and providing 25 units to serve unhoused individuals. The SGVRHT provided the cities with technical assistance, including site design, procurement, and project management. We have also helped several cities evaluate sites for development as affordable or interim housing.
I am most proud of the impact the SGVRHT has made in the region, increasing access to financing to make traditional affordable housing projects possible and supporting innovation to deliver single-family homeownership opportunities, shared housing, and interim housing. It is a truly unique experience to work on both interim and permanent housing in one role, and it has highlighted the importance of a range of housing options in our response to the housing crisis. Housing is the greatest need facing our region, and I am committed to serving the most vulnerable residents of our community.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts, or blogs that help you do your best?
I am working on improving my Spanish, so everything I’ve been listening to lately is in Spanish; I really enjoy Se Regalan Dudas. I love reading fiction as a screen-free stress reliever; it fuels my hopeless romanticism and vocabulary. There is also so much to learn about how we got to this moment in housing, so I’ve also been making my way through The Color of Law (Rothstein), The New Jim Crow (Alexander), and The Affordable City (Phillips). I completed the Ross Program in Real Estate, a certificate program which supports underrepresented groups, and recommend this resource to those interested in real estate and affordable housing development.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sgvrht.org/
- Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brielle-acevedo-58271b52/
