Lisa Alberghini has provided thousands of vulnerable individuals and families with a place to live.

For 36 years, she developed affordable housing in Boston—18 years as president of the Planning Office for Urban Affairs (POUA) and 18 years at The Community Builders, another nonprofit developer, where she began her housing career and rose to director of the Boston office.

An interest in housing and public service was planted years earlier. As a young teen, Alberghini would assist her mother who provided art therapy at a senior housing residence. One of seven children, she grew up in a home that was shared with elderly family members as they aged and once had five generations under one roof.

“I’ve always thought of housing as a vehicle for social justice,” she says.

At POUA, she led the development of award-winning, mixed-income housing, including Uphams Crossing, which transformed a former church site into 80 affordable homes for families, including many that had been homeless, in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

In another example, POUA rehabbed the historic Boston Young Men’s Christian Union building into 46 affordable homes, also with units aimed at those who have experienced homelessness.

“Over the 20 years that I worked with Lisa, I was fortunate to see firsthand her creativity, commitment, perseverance, and ‘never give up’ approach to getting housing developed,” says William Grogan, POUA president. “Under Lisa’s leadership, the Planning Office never shied away from taking on challenging, mission-driven developments. Lisa has always had a keen ability to combine complex financing methods to ensure project feasibility while accomplishing the mission of affordable housing, ensuring that everyone has a roof over their head.”

Creating mixed-income housing and working on a diversity of developments have been career highlights for Alberghini. Her work can be seen in developments across the city.

“Lisa’s contributions to solving Boston’s housing issues will be felt for generations to come. She is not only responsible forthe creation of thousands of homes for our families and older residents, but she also ensured that communities were listened to and strengthened through the development process,” says Sheila A. Dillon, Boston’s chief of housing. “In addition to being a talented and productive housing professional, Lisa has been a mentor, friend, and supporter of many women working in the field of affordable housing. Her capacity to build not only housing but relationships has been truly inspirational.”

After working as a developer, she joined the Housing Partnership Network (HPN), a collaborative of more than 100 leading housing and community development nonprofits, in 2019. Alberghini calls it “the capstone” of her career. She was now seeing and working with the best nonprofits from around the country, helping to facilitate peer-to-peer learning and strengthen their impact.

“Lisa is really remarkable. She has been an invaluable part of HPN, especially our signature peer exchange platform, not only because of her deep knowledge and expertise, but because she knows how to connect the country’s most prolific housing practitioners in ways that address our most significant social and economic challenges,” says Robin Hughes, HPN president and CEO. “Throughout her career, Lisa has been as efficacious working on the ground in communities as she has been in shaping federal housing policy or designing innovative financing solutions. She is always willing to listen, to share, to support, and to lead. The entire field of affordable housing is better off for her having been in it.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alberghini orchestrated countless virtual meetings to assist members through the crisis. HPN assembled different peer groups, such as chief financial officers or developers, so the members could discuss their specific needs. The increased level of peer exchange has continued after the pandemic.

Alberghini retired as executive vice president of HPN at the end of June but will continue to serve as a consultant for the national organization, including working on an initiative to increase local capacity for affordable housing development and financing that will benefit residents in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

As she winds down her work, another group is rising up with her assistance. She helped establish HPN’s Next Gen Talent Academy, an initiative with Project Destined, that connects college students to affordable housing developers to expose them to the industry.

“I would love for people to think of affordable housing as a career and have the industry be more intentional about that and to recruit younger, new, diverse talent,” she says.