Smarr named president/CEO of NYC Housing Partnership

New York, NY The board of directors has named Jamie Smarr as president and CEO of the NYC Housing Partnership.

He joins the Housing Partnership fromThe NHP Foundation where he led the non-profit’s Affiliate Program, which seeks joint venture affordable housing partnerships with other not-for-profits and community-based organizations. He was also involved with the NHPF acquisitions program. Jamie has helped create more than 2,500 units of affordable housing through public-private partnerships in his public service career.

At The NHP Foundation, Smarr worked closely with the financial community, CDFIs, equity funds and foundations in support of affordable housing development. He actively marketed affordable housing creation and preservation initiatives to policymakers and influencers, financiers and elected officials and he sustained the mission and business operations of the Foundation.

His experience also includes 11 years as executive director of the New York City Educational Construction Fund (ECF), which engages in public-private real estate development partnerships for the New York City school system, where he served five NYC School Chancellors.

During this tenure at ECF, Smarr was responsible for the creation of 3,000 new public school seats and over one million s/f of new residential and commercial space in New York City.

Earlier he served as director of tax and Zoning Incentives for New York City’s Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Department.

Smarr, 49, holds graduate degrees from Columbia University and Harvard University and received his Bachelor Degree from Duke University. He is also a Woodrow Wilson Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow, having completed the fellowship at Princeton University.

“We look forward to Jamie continuing and expanding the Housing Partnership’s vital role in facilitating the creation and preservation of affordable housing in New York City,” said James Hedden, chairman of the board of the NYC Housing Partnership.

For four decades the nonprofit Housing Partnership has led relationships among private sector developers and financial institutions and city, state and federal agencies that created and preserved more than 70,000 low and moderate-income housing units in the five boroughs, leveraging over $7 billion in private financing and utilized more than $500 million in subsidies for affordable housing. This stimulates economic activity that strengthens the social fabric of neighborhoods where people can now live in safe, comfortable, affordable homes.