As CEDAM continues to grow our programs, we continue to welcome more individuals to our team to add their expertise to our organization. With the goal of growing our Real Estate Development trainings and programming, we are pleased to add Sandy Pearson to our team! A veteran of the community economic development field in Michigan, we are very excited to add her to our team and get to know her better.

Jennifer Lareau-Gee, Communications Specialist: Can you give me a brief overview of what you were doing before joining CEDAM and how that led you here?

Sandy Pearson: Many years in the affordable housing community development and economic development field. I’ve worked in it since I graduated from MSU. I took a job with the state of Michigan in civil rights at the Michigan Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) and that was the base of… everything. Because of that base and the deep meaningful education that I experienced when I was working in civil rights at MSHDA, I saw housing as a platform from which individual economic development, as well as community development, could be used as tools to advance civil rights. I then worked in community development, then in the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program and writing how to use the voucher toward a mortgage instead of rent, and then in their executive office where I started working with the MSHDA board, the governor’s office, and Habitat for Humanity. Through Housing and Community Development Fund advocacy, I established a strong relationship with the founder and leader of Habitat for Humanity of Michigan, and he invited me to join Habitat for Humanity of Michigan. When he retired, I was appointed to take his place. And that is what I was doing until officially joining CEDAM. I have been in partnership with CEDAM throughout all of my time working in affordable housing, community development, and economic development.