CLPHA Welcomes Four New Board Members

Date Published:

May 4th, 2022

CLPHA is pleased to announce that during its April 2022 board meeting, four new public housing authority (PHA) executive directors were appointed to CLPHA’s board:

Janet Abrahams, President & CEO, Housing Authority of Baltimore City
Vivian Brady-Phillips, Executive Director, Jersey City Housing Authority
Ivory Mathews, Executive Director, Home Forward
Anthony Scott, CEO, Durham Housing Authority

“I am thrilled to welcome the newest members of CLPHA’s board of directors, and I am proud that our board reflects the diversity of the individuals served by public housing authorities,” said Jeffery K. Patterson, CLPHA president and CEO of the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority. “These PHA executive directors bring decades of experience in the public and affordable housing industry to our board, and through their longtime CLPHA membership they have demonstrated their expertise at translating national policies and programs, and their associated challenges, into creative local solutions that improve life outcomes for low-income families in Baltimore, MD, Jersey City, NJ, Portland, OR, and Durham, NC. Welcome Janet, Vivian, Ivory, and Anthony – it’s great to have you all on the team.”

“CLPHA congratulates our newest board members on their elections, and thanks them for sharing their time and expertise.” said Sunia Zaterman, CLPHA executive director. “Janet, Vivian, Ivory, and Anthony are leaders in their own communities and bring important local perspectives to the issues and challenges faced by PHAs across the country, and we are pleased that they are taking on this leadership role in CLPHA to help further shape our national goals and priorities.”

CLPHA’s board also voted on board officer appointments at its April 2022 meeting. All four of CLPHA’s current board officers were re-elected for 1-year terms:

President: Jeffery Patterson, CEO, Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority
Vice President: La Shelle Dozier, Executive Director, Sacramento Housing & Redevelopment Agency
Secretary: Maria Razo, Executive Director, Housing Authority of the County of San Bernardino
Treasurer: Edwin Lowndes, Executive Director, Housing Authority of Kansas City, MO

Learn more about our new board members below:

Janet Abrahams, President & CEO, Housing Authority of Baltimore City

Ms. Abrahams' career in public housing administration spans more than 20 years in which she has played key roles in developing innovative approaches to improving affordable housing communities and the quality of life for its residents. During this time, she served at three large housing authorities including the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), the Newark Housing Authority (NHA), and most recently the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), the largest housing authority in the nation.

At NYCHA, Ms. Abrahams had the privilege of being the first Senior Vice President for NextGeneration Operations, a strategic property management program designed to improve maintenance and repair service at targeted developments. The success of the program is attributed to her leadership, the collaboration with public housing residents, and increased staff accountability. Ms. Abrahams' portfolio included direct management of 67,000 units in 57 consolidated developments with a budget in excess of $70 million. Prior to joining NYCHA, Ms. Abrahams served for almost 10 years as Chief Operating Officer at the Newark Housing Authority, the eleventh largest public housing authority in the nation, where she managed all agency operations. Before Newark, she was Assistant Director of Operations at the Chicago Housing Authority, the country's third largest housing authority.

Ms. Abrahams holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Norfolk State University and a Master's degree in Public Administration from Kean University.

Vivian Brady-Phillips, Executive Director, Jersey City Housing Authority

Vivian Brady-Phillips is the Executive Director of the Jersey City Housing Authority and an experienced public administrator committed to delivering quality affordable housing and innovative social service programming. Under her leadership, the JCHA has attracted new grants and investments to renovate and redevelop affordable housing, reduced vacancies across its portfolio, and developed strong partnerships with nonprofits, government agencies and educational institutions to expand resources for residents. These efforts include: a HUD-approved and grant-funded vacancy reduction strategy; a strong focus on safety and security, including the establishment of a new Jersey City Police Department Housing Unit dedicated to the JCHA and new, integrated security enhancements across sites; the continued redevelopment of the former Montgomery Gardens site and a multi-phase community visioning process for Holland Gardens; the launch of a digital inclusion initiative that offers digital literacy training and new computer labs across sites with the support of the Electronic Access Foundation; and an array of new, comprehensive youth development programming.

Ms. Brady-Phillips previously served as a Deputy Mayor of Jersey City and, in that capacity, oversaw social services, community park improvements, grant acquisition and external partnerships, and launched a number of public-private initiatives focused on workforce development, education, and community justice. She led city’s grant team, advising departments city-wide on grants strategy and the development of Jersey City Youth Works, a comprehensive, multi-program employment and enrichment initiative that serves 1000 young people annually in partnership with the local businesses, public schools, youth-serving nonprofits, and universities. She also worked closely with the Jersey City Municipal Court and the Center for Court Innovation to help establish both a community court and a youth court program that helps first-time youth offenders get back on track.

Ms. Brady-Phillips currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation and also serves as a member of the Jersey City Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and on the New Jersey Regional Advisory Board of NPower, a national nonprofit that enables young adults and veterans to embark on technology careers.

Before joining the Mayor’s Office, Ms. Brady-Phillips was the Executive Vice President for External and Legal Affairs at the NYC Leadership Academy, a nationally recognized nonprofit that prepares public school leaders and advises school districts. A lawyer by training, Ms. Brady-Phillips practiced litigation at several prominent New York City law firms after earning J.D. from NYU School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Snow Public Interest Scholar. She lives in Jersey City with her husband and daughter.

Ivory Mathews, Executive Director, Home Forward

Ivory N. Mathews is the Executive Director of Home Forward. Mathews has dedicated more than 20 years of her professional career providing equitable housing solutions and supportive services to families. As Executive Director of the largest provider of affordable housing in Oregon, Mathews oversees an annual budget of $198 million-dollar serving 18,000 households; a team of 300 plus employees; a housing portfolio of more than 7,000 apartments; and the administration of a variety of rent assistance programs, including 11,000 Housing Choice Vouchers, a short-term rent assistance program that consolidates funding from several different sources and provides assistance through 19 social service partners; and partnerships with more than 100 community organizations.

Under Mathews leadership Home Forward continues fostering cooperation and partnerships among a congeries of external constituencies and stakeholders, including federal, state, and local government officials; private and non-profit agencies; jurisdictional partners; housing participants; and the community. She also continues the implementation of Home Forwards vision, mission, strategies, policies, and operational objectives, towards its evolution of becoming a diverse, anti-racist, equitable and inclusive organization. In addition, Mathews continues to lead the work of attracting, developing, managing and retaining an effective, diverse workforce.

Prior to joining Home Forward, Mathews was the Chief Executive Office for Columbia Housing and Cayce Housing in South Carolina.

Mathews holds a master’s degree in Counseling & Psychology from Troy University, a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Newberry College, and several nationally recognized certifications in the affordable housing arena. Mathews was acknowledged for her role in legislative advocacy by receiving the 2022 NAHRO Advocate of the Year Award. She is also a Riley Institute Diversity Leadership Initiative Fellow and has recently been named Top 20 Dynamic CEO’s for 2021 by The CEO Publication. In 2021 and 2020 Mathews was named the 50 Most Influential in the Midlands by Columbia Business Monthly.

She is happily married for 20 years to Donnie Mathews; they are the proud parents of two children, Mahogany, 17 and Dalton, 12.

Anthony Scott, CEO, Durham Housing Authority

Anthony Scott, Chief Executive Officer of the Durham Housing Authority (DHA) since 2016. With more than 30 years in the community development field that includes the areas of community organizing, economic development, strategic planning, and affordable housing, his career has been solely focused on building better communities for all.  His career experience includes a decade-long tenure heading a community based organization in South Central Los Angeles and several years at the State of Virginia before entering the public housing arena, where he served in leadership positions in three states.

DHA has approximately 2,000 public and affordable housing units and administers up to 2,800 Housing Choice Vouchers. Currently DHA is pursuing an aggressive redevelopment of its public housing portfolio to create mixed income and where possible, mixed-use communities. The Downtown properties, consisting of nearly 450 units on over 50 acres of land, is the first phase of this repositioning of its properties that will result in the preservation of the existing units and an expansion of additional units to a combined total of over 2,500 units in the downtown area.

Prior to his tenure at DHA, he previously held the position of Deputy Executive Director at the Housing Authority of Baltimore which is the largest Public Housing Authority in Maryland. In this role, he served over 25,000 Baltimore households with an operating budget of $250 million and 750 employees. Prior to that, Mr. Scott was the Chief Executive Officer of Virginia’s largest Public Housing Authority with an annual budget of over $91 million, 350 employees and 7,500 households.

He earned a Bachelor's degree in Architecture from Howard University and a Master's of Urban Planning from the University of California at Los Angeles.

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