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Nuestra Comunidad is pleased to announce that Monica Dean has joined our company as the Director of Organizing & Resident Services. Monica brings to this position a wealth of experience with community development and organizing in Roxbury, Nuestra’s core service area. Monica knows Roxbury very well both as a long-time resident and through her professional history. She served as Chief of Staff for Senator Dianne Wilkerson in the Massachusetts Senate, and while there assisted hundreds of residents in accessing crucial resources and opportunities, helping many find affordable housing and others avoid foreclosure. In that role Monica worked closely with the community development corporations, other community-based organizations, churches and neighborhood associations across the Second Suffolk District. She helped put into place agreements to build affordable housing, to revitalize commercial properties and to address crucial issues such as CORI reform and environmental justice in our community. Previously, Monica worked as the Office Director at the corporate headquarters of Maloney Properties, a property management company with a large portfolio of affordable housing developments, including many in Roxbury. She has served as a Counselor at Aid to Incarcerated Mothers in Boston, working closely not only with incarcerated mothers but also their families in the community, helping them access educational opportunities, employment and other crucial resources. Monica is a graduate of Johnson C. Smith University, where she received a B.A. in Psychology, and the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she earned a Masters of Education in Mental Health Counseling. Monica joins Nuestra as its Director of Organizing & Resident Services at a critical time. The foreclosure crisis continues to threaten Roxbury, in particular the northern Blue Hill Avenue corridor. More properties are being foreclosed, and banks and investors continue to neglect the vacant properties they have acquired, creating hazards for local families as buildings are left unsecured and poorly maintained. In the midst of this crisis, opportunities are also present. As Nuestra organizes to acquire and renovate foreclosed properties, we can provide jobs for local residents and contracts for small local contractors. As resources are increasingly available for green jobs, Nuestra is working to create these jobs for Roxbury residents, through a weatherization initiative that will lower heating costs for Roxbury families and improve the healthiness of local housing. At the Kasanof Bakery site, where construction will start this fall on a 48-apartment development, Nuestra plans to place a high number of local workers in construction jobs, and hit high percentages of MBE contracting, through strategic outreach and job placement partnerships with Project RIGHT, Quincy Geneva CDC and others. Nuestra Comunidad is confident that Monica Dean will successfully engage the many Roxbury residents and organizations ready to work together now to stabilize our neighborhoods through successful development initiatives planned by the community.
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