Chief Housing Officer/Managing Director

The Kelsey is hiring a Chief Housing Officer or Managing Director to lead our disability-forward housing efforts — advancing our real estate development pipeline, scaling technical assistance, managing a growing team, and shaping strategies that enable 20,000 disability-forward homes by 2030. We will hire either a Chief Housing Officer or Managing Director, depending on the candidate’s experience, expertise, and alignment with the role’s responsibilities.

About The Kelsey

Based in San Francisco, operating nationally, we are a team of people with and without disabilities, creating a disability-forward housing future. The Kelsey advances disability-forward housing solutions that open doors to homes and opportunities for everyone. We both co-develop affordable, accessible, inclusive housing and lead advocacy and field-building efforts to create market conditions so inclusive housing becomes the norm.

In just six years, we have built over 240 homes, unlocked almost $190M in funding, and impacted over 6,000 community advocates. Residents with and without disabilities now live in communities that were in concept five years ago. Our Technical Assistance has supported projects across 16 states, and our open-source resources have been used in almost every state.

All new and existing team members are expected to embody our values in their everyday work:

• Disability-Forward: We bring our lived experiences as disabled people and allies to everything we do. We seek to create spaces where disability is a valued part of human identity and communities. We center access, practice interdependence, and value diversity.
• Intentional: We are thoughtful, curious, and deliberate. We deeply understand the systems impacting our work and willingly learn new strategies needed to advance our mission.
• Joyful: We value joy even as we undertake serious work and challenges. We create space for ourselves and our partners to experience community, fun, purpose, and happiness.
• Radically Inclusive: We are welcoming, care-centered, and accepting. We practice hospitality and foster belonging for all people in our community and networks, across their many identities and ideas.
• Groundbreaking: We pave new ways to understand and approach the work we do, unconstrained by the status quo and stigma. We transparently and willingly share our knowledge with others to make more impact possible and open new opportunities.

About the Role

Building on The Kelsey’s momentum and growing national footprint, the Chief Housing Officer / Managing Director (CHO/MD) will play a pivotal role in shaping what comes next. As a core member of the senior leadership team, the CHO/MD will help lead our strategy to build, assist, and enable 20,000 homes by 2030. They will guide our real estate development pipeline, manage co-development partnerships, and oversee technical assistance and field-building programs that bring inclusive housing to scale. This leader will manage a talented and expanding housing team, bringing together hands-on development expertise with big-picture strategy, advocacy, and systems change.

The CHO/MD will ensure that The Kelsey’s real estate projects, both in our own pipeline and through technical assistance, model the values of disability-forward, inclusive housing. They will cultivate a culture of high-performance, collaboration, and impact while building tools and processes that support organizational sustainability, program scaling, and continued impact.

For this role, you will:

Drive Real Estate Pipeline & Development

• Source and cultivate new real estate pipeline opportunities, including site identification, due diligence, partner vetting, strategic planning, and funding strategy.
• Evaluate and refine financial feasibility analysis, proformas, and project budgets.
• Manage co-development partnerships.
• Develop and maintain replicable Property Standards that inform internal developments and external field-building tools.
• Collaborate with the Real Estate Committee to refine, set, and implement the organization’s real estate strategy.
• Approve and manage real estate-related transactions, including capital investments, loan agreements, invoicing, and funding compliance.

Lead Technical Assistance & Replication Tools

• Advance The Kelsey’s technical assistance work to meet housing, revenue, and mission-driven targets.
• Reinforce client intake and screening processes to ensure alignment with The Kelsey’s values.
• Standardize tools and frameworks that enable replication of The Kelsey’s model in diverse communities.
• Conduct data and financial analysis to support evidence-based decision-making.
• Translate complex technical, policy, and financial concepts into plain language for internal and external audiences.

Manage Team and Foster Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Supervise and develop housing team staff, providing thoughtful performance management, coaching, and mentorship.
• Design and implement team systems that promote seamless project execution and reduce friction.
• Champion a culture of joy, access, accountability, and high standards, attuned to varying team strengths and access needs.
• Encourage cross-functional collaboration to align housing work with broader organizational impact.
• Participate on the senior leadership team to support organization-wide strategy, shared goal setting, and impact measurement.

Integrate Housing Strategy into Field Building and Advocacy

• Ensure the housing team’s work informs, strengthens, and scales The Kelsey’s goals around policy advocacy, field building, and systems change.
• Inform field-building strategy with lessons and data from the real estate pipeline and technical assistance.
• Represent The Kelsey in strategic partnerships with policymakers, public agencies, funders, networks, and aligned organizations.
• Translate The Kelsey’s housing strategy into sector-wide initiatives, including Section 811 advocacy, QAP, and Low Income Housing Tax Credit reform, funding selection criteria, and other housing policy advocacy.

About You

The Chief Housing Officer / Managing Director will be a dynamic housing leader who is passionate about both sustained impact and transformative scaling. You are equally comfortable reviewing proformas as you are mapping out long-term strategy. You bring a growth mindset and thrive in roles where you’re asked to lead big-picture vision, dig into the details, and roll up your sleeves to make it happen. You are collaborative, driven, and grounded in values of inclusion, equity, and abundance. You bring the strategic perspective of a seasoned housing professional with the adaptability of a builder working in an emerging field.

You are energized by joining a rapidly scaling team, and you have a demonstrated track record of managing people, partnerships, and projects across the lifecycle of complex real estate or housing initiatives. You’ve built systems and structures that support growth while centering access and sustainability. You are a skilled communicator who can translate technical concepts into plain language and align diverse stakeholders toward a shared vision.

You could come from the nonprofit, public, private, or philanthropic sectors, but regardless of your background, you’re motivated by a desire to transform the housing field through inclusive, accessible, replicable, and community-driven models.

The ideal candidate will have:

• Proven experience in real estate development, including site identification, financial feasibility, capital structuring, and public/private funding.
• Strong financial and analytical acumen, including the ability to build, review, and interpret proformas, budgets, and investment analyses.
• Demonstrated success scaling programs or organizations, including building replicable tools, processes, and teams to enable growth.
• Experience managing people and teams, including remote/hybrid teams and staff with diverse access needs and lived experiences.
• Exceptional cross-functional collaboration skills, with an ability to work across silos and disciplines to maximize impact.
• Commitment to equity and disability-forward values, with the humility to learn and the courage to lead in complex and evolving systems.
• Strong relationship-building and external partnership skills, especially with public sector partners, co-developers, funders, and technical consultants.
• A bias toward action with the discipline to execute and the vision to set strategy — able to move seamlessly between big-picture thinking and tactical follow-through.

We need people with and without disabilities from diverse backgrounds, lived experiences, and skill sets to live out our mission at The Kelsey. We strongly encourage people who have felt the impacts of the nation’s housing crisis to apply. This includes but is not limited to people most impacted by racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, classism, and other forms of oppression.

Location

This is a remote position with travel 10-12 times annually. Preference for candidates based in the southeast or with experience in the southeast or candidates based in the San Francisco Bay Area, tied to our growing housing pipeline in those regions.

Compensation

The salary range for this position is $110,000 to $190,000 based on experience and location. We offer benefits such as robust health coverage, three weeks of vacation and family leave, and retirement matching contributions.