Jessica Venegas has joined the Common Ground Institute and UNITY of Greater New Orleans as Field Manager for Housing Development through her Fellowship with the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence (CUREx). In September 2006, Common Ground, through the Common Ground Institute, embarked on a long-term partnership with Unity of Greater New Orleans (Unity) to facilitate the development of 500 new housing units and to build the understanding and capacity locally to target rental units to house the chronically homeless. Under this partnership, Jessica is mentored and supervised by Common Ground but is an employee of Unity of Greater New Orleans.

As a field manager for the partnership, Jessica works with CG’s Director of Housing Development and the Director of New Initiatives in program development, project management, policy advocacy, and public relations for the partnerships’ New Orleans housing development priorities.

Jessica’s most recent position was Vice President of Public Policy for the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations (LANO). LANO works to build knowledge and capacity around policies and activities at the local, state, and federal level. She came to Louisiana from Washington DC where she was Director of Community Assessment with the Community Preservation and Development Corporation (CPDC). Jessica has worked primarily in the nonprofit housing sector and has eleven years of urban community development and program management experience. She has held a number of positions on local DC neighborhood corporations and nonprofits and is currently Vice President of the Neighborhood Networks National Consortium Board of Directors. Jessica is bilingual in Spanish.