Senior Manager, Land Use and Building Code

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. This means that we create housing solutions that center on disability access, inclusion and equity and which open doors to more affordable homes and opportunities for everyone. We have 240 homes in our pipeline and lead policy, advocacy, and field-building initiatives to support market conditions to make inclusive housing the norm.

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 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

We are hiring a full-time Senior Manager, to lead land use and building code reform at The Kelsey. The first two-years of this role will be primarily focused on advancing an elevator reform strategy as part of a broader disability-forward housing policy agenda. Elevator reform is a powerful, pragmatic opportunity to address building codes and regulations that unintentionally suppress both access and housing supply. This role will reframe elevator requirements—currently often misaligned with global best practices—as a shared priority for housing abundance and disability rights and inclusion.

The Kelsey is a remote-first organization, and this role is also remote, with occasional regional or national travel. This role will be 70% focused on leading the elevator reform and 30% on broader disability-forward housing land use, building code, and broader housing policy.

For this role, you will be:

• Lead National Coalition Building
  • Establish and facilitate strategy and administration for the coalition on elevator reform
  • Manage relationships through a broad-based national coalition, including disability groups, older adult organizations, and housing advocates
• Facilitate Narrative Strategy
  • Facilitate storytelling and educational initiatives to collect and elevate narratives from disabled people and seniors, reframing technical housing policy and reform through human impact
• Drive Targeted Code and Regulatory Reform
  • Collaborating with technical experts to advance incremental reforms at the state level, where building codes are most often modified, including model legislative or regulatory language that modernizes elevator requirements and allows greater flexibility
  • Supporting federal accessibility clarification, particularly where existing interpretations unintentionally limit access or inflate costs, while explicitly upholding disability rights laws
  • Preparing for the 2027–2030 IBC cycle to eliminate expensive elevator requirements (e.g., hoistway opening protection, two‑way visual communication, stretcher requirements)
• Build Field Capacity and Scalable Playbooks
  • Equipping regional housing and disability advocates with policy playbooks, messaging guidance, and advocacy tools to lead reform efforts locally
  • Working with technical design experts to create resources to illustrate what good looks like for the future of elevators and other key disability-forward housing reforms
  • Developing advocacy and policy “playbooks” that elected officials and agency staff can use to navigate opposition, engage safety officials, and advance reform responsibly
• Support the broader disability-forward housing policy agenda through policy analysis, assistance to partners to advocate and/or implement such reforms, and other related activities.

Within the first three months, as Senior Manager, you will

• Stand up the initial national coalition infrastructure and coordinate the launch strategy focused on elevator reform.
• Begin developing messages and creating partner toolkits to align messaging across sectors.
• Identify and engage key technical and design partners to support future research and advocacy.
• Provide support to state advocates leading elevator reform initiatives now.
• Understand The Kelsey’s disability-forward housing policy agenda and how elevator reform and land use policy fit into the broader strategy.

Within the first six months, as a Senior Manager, you will

• Demonstrate early momentum by launching the coalition for elevator reform and facilitating the first storytelling initiative
• Identify and build momentum in target markets where model legislative or regulatory language is possible
• Develop a strategic plan for the 2027–2030 IBC cycle to eliminate expensive elevator requirements
• Facilitate partners to establish “what good looks like” for the future of elevators
• Support policy-related technical assistance projects for governments that seek to embed disability-forward reforms into their housing approach

About You

We are looking for a leader who can navigate technical building codes while maintaining a human-centered, disability-forward perspective. You should be a collaborative advocate capable of building bridges between technical experts, policy leaders, and grassroots activists.

The key traits that are most important in this role are:

• Strategic Coalition Builder: Ability to manage a diverse national coalition and expand it beyond technical experts to include a cross-sector base of advocates and policy leaders.
• Narrative Architect: Skill in reframing esoteric technical issues into urgent, human-centered stories that drive policy change.
• Policy & Regulatory Savvy: Quick and adaptive learner; experience with building codes, legislative processes, housing policy, and/or disability rights laws to navigate complex regulatory environments.
• Groundbreaking Mindset: Ability to challenge the status quo and find new ways to demonstrate how accessibility and housing abundance can accelerate one another.
• Adaptive Teamplayer: A willingness and enthusiasm to collaborate and support broader organizational priorities as needs and opportunities arise.

The Kelsey is deeply committed to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. We believe social change happens when people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and identities come together with a common purpose. The Kelsey is built on the principles of equity, transparency and the power of human experience. Your work will improve the daily lives of real people. 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.

Even if you don’t meet these traits 100%, but think you bring something to the role and team please feel free to apply.

Please note that you must be authorized to work in the United States.

What We Offer

The salary range for this position is $85,000 to $120,000, depending on experience. We offer benefits such as robust health coverage, four weeks of vacation and family leave.

We offer benefits such as robust health coverage, four weeks of vacation and family leave.