About the Agency:

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) promotes quality and affordability in the city's housing, and diversity and strength in the city’s neighborhoods because every New Yorker deserves a safe, affordable place to live in a neighborhood they love.

- We maintain building and resident safety and health
- We create opportunities for New Yorkers through housing affordability
- We engage New Yorkers to build and sustain neighborhood strength and diversity.

HPD is entrusted with fulfilling these objectives through the goals and strategies of “Housing Our Neighbors: A Blueprint for Housing and Homelessness,” Mayor Adams’ comprehensive housing framework. To support this important work, the administration has committed $5 billion in new capital funding, bringing the 10-year planned investment in housing to $22 billion the largest in the city’s history. This investment, coupled with a commitment to reduce administrative and regulatory barriers, is a multi-pronged strategy to tackle New York City’s complex housing crisis, by addressing homelessness and housing instability, promoting economic stability and mobility, increasing homeownership opportunities, improving health and safety, and increasing opportunities for equitable growth.

Your Team:

The Office of Development leads the agency's effort in implementing the Mayor's Housing Plan. This is achieved in close collaboration with HPD colleagues, other City and state agencies, and the New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC).

Within the Office of Development, the Division of Homeownership Opportunities and Preservation (HOP) creates and preserves affordable homes to affordable housing opportunities and facilitate generational wealth-building, maintain housing quality, and address the legacy of discrimination, segregation, and concentrated poverty. We do so by providing financial assistance to low- and middle-income homeowners, limited equity cooperatives, and community land trusts. Programs within the Division include:

- HomeFix 2.0 and Project Help, programs that provide access to affordable low- or no-interest and potentially forgivable loans and grants for home repairs as well as resiliency or energy efficiency improvements to eligible owners of one- to four-family homes.
- The Basement Apartment Conversion Pilot Program and the Plus One Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) program that finance ADU conversions in small homes.
- Small Homes Rehab, which works with nonprofit developers to rehab existing public sites and privately owned 1-4 family homes to create affordable homeownership opportunities for low-income New Yorkers.
- Community Restoration Fund, which facilitates the acquisition of distressed mortgage notes from mortgage lenders and repositions these assets to preserve affordable homeownership and rental opportunities.
- The Affordable Neighborhood Cooperative Program (ANCP), which selects qualified developers to rehabilitate distressed city-owned occupied multi-family properties, managed by the Tenant Interim Lease Program, to create affordable cooperatives for low- and moderate-income households.
- Open Door which funds the new construction of cooperatives and fee simple homes affordable to low- to moderate-income first-time homebuyers.
- HomeFirst, HPD’s down payment assistance program which provides up to $100k towards the purchase of a home for income eligible first-time homebuyers.
- Special initiatives, including the Basement Flood Mitigation Study which will research basement flooding and recommend areas for future basement conversions as well as mitigation strategies, Community Land Trusts, designed to ensure community stewardship of land and long-term housing affordability and the Zombie Homes initiative to develop an acquisition strategy for vacant and abandoned homes and reposition them as affordable homeownership opportunities.

Your Impact:

As the Assistant Commissioner of the Division, you will lead the modernization and expansion of homeownership stabilization and production programs to meet the needs of New York City today. The entire division currently assists over five hundred low- to middle-income households annually helping them become homeowners, build generational wealth, and retain equity in their homes.

Your Role:

- Oversee and enhance HPD's homeownership programs for operational efficiency and consistency.
- Manage a diverse portfolio of homeownership programs and initiatives, involving city, state, and federal funding including small home repair loans/grants, down payment assistance, distressed note and zombie property acquisitions, substantial rehabilitation of city owned buildings, and new construction initiatives.
- Lead a team of approximately 40 staff, fostering innovation and collaboration within the Division.

Your Responsibilities:

The ideal candidate is an experienced, creative, analytical, entrepreneurial, solutions-oriented professional that can assess existing programs to determine pathways to improve and expand their impact and collaborate with staff and agency leadership to create and implement new programs. The Assistant Commissioner will also help drive new policy initiatives related to homeownership in New York City.

There will be significant contact with government officials, not-for-profit partners, developers, and affordable housing lenders. The Assistant Commissioner will work with senior program staff (Executive Directors and Directors) as well as HPD Legal to define and negotiate the business and legal terms of their programs, including finalizing contracts and legal documents. With the help of senior program staff, the Assistant Commissioner will be responsible for managing several contracts and grant agreements, including City Counsel Discretionary contracts, City funded contracts, as well as Federal HOME and Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) contracts.

Finally, the Assistant Commissioner will have four direct reports and will be responsible for leading a team of approximately 40 staff – including Directors, Deputy Directors, and Project Management staff. The Assistant Commissioner is responsible for teaching, inspiring, and empowering all staff within the Division.

Primary responsibilities will include, but not be limited to:

Overview
- Overseeing the development and implementation of homeownership programs to meet the goals of the Mayor’s Housing Blueprint and other initiatives.
- Improving the agency’s ability to serve low- to moderate-income households who have traditionally been excluded from homeownership opportunities, add to the affordable homeownership housing stock through strategic community investments, and maintain housing quality of small 1-4 family homes with a keen eye towards operational efficiency and consistency in homeownership policy and strategy.
- In collaboration with Directors, managing the development pipeline for homeownership financing programs and ensuring timely, high-quality closings, completions, and conversions of projects.
- Assist the Directors and their teams to proactively manage projects, troubleshoot, make appropriate recommendations, and ensure all necessary approvals;
- Managing special projects, including development and implementation of homeownership and homeowner assistance initiatives and strategies;
- Communicating with elected officials, other City agencies, homeowners, developers, lenders, community groups and other stakeholders as necessary, including presenting program materials at interagency meetings, meetings with elected officials and community meetings;
- Representing the Division on behalf of the agency at internal and external meetings and public speaking events;
- Collaborate with other HPD divisions to achieve agency goals as they relate to homeownership.

Program Oversight and Policy
- Managing and directing staff, including establishing appropriate productivity measures; supporting staff in achieving programmatic and agency goals, promoting collaboration among staff, promoting high achievement, overseeing staff in their performance of their responsibilities, and evaluating staff;
- Leading and engaging in programmatic and policy discussions and incorporate feedback on specific proposals from program staff as well as other HPD divisions;
- Identifying opportunities to improve program operations and impact;
- Identifying opportunities to train and build out expertise of program staff;
- Assist HPD Legal in preparing and reviewing legal documents with a keen eye on accuracy and intended terms including mortgage notes, regulatory agreements, other documents requiring understanding of complex regulations;
- Negotiating and managing procurement actions, such as contracts with vendors as well as negotiating deal terms with developers and affordable housing lenders.
- Effectively and efficiently using public resources to achieve goals, including evaluating project underwriting and financing terms, developing and ensuring sound implementation of program financing terms, reviewing financial modelling, and participating on Credit Committee.
- Reviewing and analyzing project proposal materials and loan documents prepared by program staff;
- Preparing documents and materials for audits of program compliance in coordination with HPD’s Audit Review Unit and external auditors.
- With the help of the Directors, managing administrative functions such as budget forecasting, setting productivity goals, tracking/reporting and compliance;
- Facilitating budget and program negotiations with interagency teams, including the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice (MOCEJ), the Department of Buildings (DOB), the Department of City Planning (DCP), the Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery Operations (HRO), and City Hall.

1. Graduation from an accredited college and four years of progressively responsible supervisory, administrative or consultative experience in large scale management or rehabilitation operations. Urban development projects, energy conservation or a related field, including one year of executive level experience in the development and/or management of large-scale housing or energy programs. Graduate work in an appropriate field may be substituted for up to two years of the general experience required; or

2. Education and/or experience equivalent to “1” above.

As a prospective employee of the City of New York, you may be eligible for federal loan forgiveness programs and state repayment assistance programs. For more information, please visit the U.S. Department of Education’s website at https://studentaid.gov/pslf/.

New York City residency is generally required within 90 days of appointment. However, City Employees in certain titles who have worked for the City for 2 continuous years may also be eligible to reside in Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, Westchester, Rockland, or Orange County. To determine if the residency requirement applies to you, please discuss with the agency representative at the time of interview.

The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.