Eden Housing Welcomes Two New Members to Its Board of Directors
March 4, 2024
— New members Andrea Jones and Deborah Ruane bring decades of affordable housing experience to Eden Housing’s Board of Directors —
Eden Housing proudly announces the appointment of Andrea Jones and Deborah Ruane to its Board of Directors. The addition of Jones and Ruane follows the departure of Calvin Whitaker, John Gaffney and Nicholas Randall, who collectively served over 80 years.
“We’re excited to welcome Andrea and Deborah to our Board of Directors,” said Eden Housing CEO Linda Mandolini. “Our team of affordable housing champions is looking forward to witnessing how their wealth of experience and steadfast commitment will yield invaluable contributions and advance our mission at Eden Housing. We’d also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Calvin, John and Nicholas for their unwavering dedication to the organization and their invaluable support in furthering our ambitious goals.”
Andrea Jones, vice president of development and construction for Southern Land Company, joins the board with extensive expertise in real estate development. Throughout her nearly 40-year career in housing, Jones was the senior director of development for Kylli and FivePoint, the vice president of U.S. Development and Operations for Bosa Development Corporation and the senior vice president of Catellus Development Corporation.
With this comprehensive career background, Jones has gained in-depth experience in all facets of real estate development, including expertise in land use, design, entitlement processing, market analysis and community relations.
In addition to affordable housing, her specialties include real estate transactions, mixed-use communities, entitlements, environmental review, residential design, permitting, project implementation and construction, community involvement, condominium governance and apartment management.
Jones holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Tufts University and a Master of Science from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Deborah Ruane, president and founder of Norwood Development Strategies, brings a wealth of knowledge in finance, real estate development and government to the board. Over her 30-year career, Ruane has been dedicated to affordable housing finance and development. Her company Norwood Development Strategies specializes in providing solutions for the creation of multifamily housing to serve workforce families. Ruane established Norwood Development Strategies to facilitate collaborative solutions for developers, financial institutions and local jurisdictions to address housing shortages in major metropolitan areas.
Over the past three years, Ruane’s organization has collaborated with the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate and the Mulvaney Center for Community, Awareness and Social Action at the University of San Diego. Through a partnership with Civic Communities, a nonprofit organization in San Diego, Ruane’s Middlemarch Fund completed its inaugural development transaction in 2021, providing housing to middle-income individuals and families – a first in San Diego. This fund was created to address the housing crisis by creating a continuum of rental options between subsidized, low-income housing and market-rate units.
Most recently, Ruane served as executive vice president and chief strategy officer for the San Diego Housing Commission, overseeing real estate development, policy and strategy for the agency. Prior to this position, she held senior roles at Bank of America’s Community Development Banking Group and Fairfield Residential.
Ruane studied business administration and engineering and has a Master of Science degree from the Knauss School of Business at the University of San Diego. She has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Real Estate at Point Loma Nazarene University and is a frequent guest lecturer at the University of San Diego’s Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate and the Knauss School of Business. She is a member of real estate organizations focused on housing policy in California, in addition to participating as a Chair of the Finance Committee for the San Diego Building Industry Association and a board member of The Lucky Duck Foundation.
ABOUT EDEN HOUSING
Eden Housing is a non-profit organization with 55 years of experience providing safe and affordable housing that helps families stay secure, allows communities to thrive, and solves many of the most pressing housing challenges facing California cities. Since its inception, the Bay Area-based organization has developed more than 10,000 affordable homes and is a leader in making its residential communities environmentally sustainable and efficient through integrating energy conservation. Eden is also known as a champion of housing policy advocacy at the local, state, and national level, supporting practices that both create and preserve affordable housing for diverse communities. Learn more at www.edenhousing.org.