Private Developers / Public Interest: Three women tackle affordable housing

The need for affordable housing is too great for nonprofits and cities to address on their own, calling for private developers to help meet the demand. But the exorbitant cost of land and construction make it all but impossible for any developer to produce affordable housing using conventional means alone.

Meet three developers who are breaking through this impasse by leveraging modular and mass timber construction, combining private equity and public resources, and redefining the very concept of a housing unit. Anna Mackay, Jessy Ledesma, and Leah Martin will share innovative and replicable models for affordable and middle-income housing, their successes and challenges, and a calculation of return on investment that considers not just financial gain, but social impact.

Panelists:

Leah Martin is the co-founder of Allied8, an architecture, development, and advocacy firm in Seattle. She has practiced in Seattle for 30 years and is an active housing policy advocate, working to remove barriers in local policies so it’s easier to create community-based affordable housing. Her specific area of focus over the last eight years has been developing new affordable homeownership typologies so that communities and individuals at risk of displacement can create generational wealth while simultaneously ensuring communities stay intact.

Leah serves on the board of Spark Northwest, an environmental justice nonprofit that enables a clean energy future for low-income communities. She is a regular design critic at the University of Washington and is a member of the Northwest Eco Building Guild and The American Institute of Architects (AIA).

Anna Mackay develops real estate under the Sister City shingle. Her (mostly infill) placemaking responds to community need, whether that means converting a defunct midcentury gas station into a neighborhood food hall or delivering affordable multifamily housing at scale. Anna’s work fosters cross-disciplinary collaboration and good vibes. She imagines a world where more Regular People are supported in their placemaking pursuits. She practices in Portland, Oregon.

Jessy Ledesma is the founder of HomeWork Development and co-owner of Shortstack Housing, both based in Portland, Oregon. Jessy founded HomeWork in early 2021 with a vision to build a new model for missing middle housing development. Prior to HomeWork, Jessy was director of development at Beam Development and previously developed affordable housing for both for-profit and nonprofit ownership.

With 17 years of development experience in the Portland area, Jessy has transacted $230M in development volume across 20 projects. This includes over 650 affordable housing units and 200,000 SF of commercial developments. Jessy is adept at creative financial structuring and multi-layered capital stacks, although she is convinced there is an easier way to finance affordable housing.