MAHA Announces Symone Crawford as New Executive Director
The Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA), one of the founding organizations that helped create the Community Preservation Coalition, announced today the appointment of Symone Crawford as its next Executive Director. Symone Crawford is the current Director of STASH and Homeownership Operations at MAHA and before that served on the organization’s Board of Directors for 11 years. Crawford will be one of the first women of color to lead a statewide nonprofit housing organization in Massachusetts. She assumes the new position on January 1, 2022.
“I’m humbled by the chance to continue to break down the barriers facing lower income homebuyers, especially homebuyers of color,” said Crawford. “MAHA has always worked to narrow the racial homeownership gap and now is the time for everyone to redouble our efforts to make serious progress in Boston and throughout the state.”
After the Community Preservation Act was signed into law in 2000, MAHA was one of five non-profit organizations that originally founded the Community Preservation Coalition. Since then, MAHA has been invaluable ally in the Coalition's efforts to promote the statewide CPA program, resulting in the creation and support of over 13,000 affordable housing units over the last 20 years. Symone's predecessor, Tom Callahan, has been a longtime member of the Coalition's Steering Committee and currently serves as Chair of the Committee - we look forward to working with Symone after she assumes the role of MAHA's Executive Director next year.
Established in 1985, MAHA has led many successful community campaigns to increase support for affordable and sustainable homeownership. These efforts have resulted in the ONE Mortgage, the nation’s longest running Community Reinvestment Act mortgage program serving over 23,000 homebuyers, over half households of color; HomeSafe, a groundbreaking education-based property insurance discount plan for homeowners; STASH, a first-in-the-nation matched savings program for first-generation homebuyers; and expanding state-level CRA coverage to independent mortgage companies. MAHA has also graduated over 40,000 people from its comprehensive homebuyer and homeowner classes, more than any organization in the state.