The Board of Homes for America has selected Paula C. Sampson to become the next President of the organization after Nancy Rase makes her planned departure on November 1, 2015. Paula Sampson has had a distinguished career in the public and nonprofit affordable housing field and real estate finance. The Board feels she is the ideal person to lead the organization.
Homes for America is one of the country’s largest nonprofit affordable housing developers, with a portfolio of 72 communities totally over 6,000 apartment homes in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, founded 21 years ago, the organization has a solid financial base, and a distinguished record of developing housing enhanced with services.
Paula Sampson most recently served for 15 years as the Executive Director of the Fairfax County, Virginia Department of Housing and the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority. In that capacity she oversaw an agency with an annual operating budget of $110 million and 230 employees. She was responsible for the development and preservation of almost 4,000 affordable units, issued over $600 million in bonds for housing, worked with many complex real estate transactions. She also administered the funding for two local housing trust funds that created over 3,000 units. The agency also asset managed a portfolio of nearly 4,000 units of many different kinds of housing, including public housing, tax credit and mixed income properties.
Prior to directing the Fairfax County agency, for seven years she was the President and CEO of the statewide Connecticut Housing Investment Fund, demonstrating her entrepreneurial and management talents in taking a financially struggling nonprofit organization into a financially stable and viable enterprise.
Before the Connecticut job, Paula started her housing career as the Director of Real Estate Financing for the Fairfax County agency, where she supervised the real estate transactions for seven years.
“Paula’s background, her experience and her managerial skills and achievements, could not be a more perfect fit for taking over the leadership of HFA”, said Trudy McFall, Chairman and Co-founder of HFA. “She is also an accomplished, warm and engaging person and I look forward to working with her. She will be building on Nancy Rase’s remarkable achievements in 21 years as our Co-founder, President and CEO. We will miss Nancy tremendously and respect her desire to continue to contribute to the housing field in new ways. I know Nancy and Paula will work together to make a smooth transition and she will continue to provide consulting advice to Paula. In October Paula will come on staff prior to her official assumption of the position and she and Nancy will reach out for introductions to our many partners, lenders and investors.”
