Sean Spear started his career as a city planner in New York City, working in Crown Heights, the Brooklyn neighborhood where he grew up.
The role allowed him to give back to his community while building skills he would draw on in the years ahead.
“As a city planner, you identify a problem and work a standardized process to figure out how you are going to address that problem,” he says. “It’s methodical. You define the problem. You define the scope of your research. You carry out that research. You come up with a set of findings. From those findings, you ultimately produce recommendations. When time is available, I still use this methodology to problem-solve.”
Today, Spear is president and CEO of Community HousingWorks (CHW), a San Diego–based nonprofit developer that provides more than 5,300 affordable homes in 54 communities in California and Texas. The organization has seven more developments under construction, with another 17 in the pipeline.
In addition to leading CHW, he’s often sharing the lessons he has learned with emerging developers. He serves as chairman of the University of California San Diego’s Real Estate and Development Advisory Board and is its only nonprofit developer.
Each year, he also lectures or serves on a panel at the University of California Los Angeles’ Howard and Irene Levine Affordable Housing Development Program, an accelerated educational training program for young affordable housing professionals.
“This is about helping the next generation of real estate developers to look at our field as a viable choice for themselves,” Spear says. “Bright young people in this field can make a lot of money on the market-rate side. I’m hoping to get them to also think about affordable housing as a viable and exciting career is one of the goals.”
For his work, Spear has been named this year’s recipient of the Nathan D. Taft Award for Leadership & Character in Affordable Housing.
The award was established by Jonathan Rose Cos. and Scott Alter, co-founder of Standard Communities, along with Affordable Housing Finance. It honors the legacy of Taft, a longtime partner and chief investment officer at Jonathan Rose Cos., who mentored many young people entering the field and served on numerous industry boards.
More Than Housing
Mentorship is also part of CHW. Since Spear joined in 2020, the organization has implemented a buddy system for both staff members and its board of directors. Each new employee is partnered with someone in a related position, but not necessarily in the same department, to serve as a resource. The approach extends to the board, where incoming members are matched with longer-serving directors.
It’s part of an effort to build a strong team to deliver affordable housing and services often for the neediest members of a community.
Last year, CHW opened the 88-unit Jacaranda on 9th Apartments in San Diego, the first development that was started and completed under Spear’s leadership. It is home to residents earning less than 35% of the area median income and includes 14 permanent supportive housing units.
“What we started off thinking about was how can we serve those most at risk of falling into homelessness,” he says. “We looked at this as an experiment in homelessness prevention. … There are seniors living there who are on very limited Social Security. It’s also home to transition-age youth coming out of the foster-care system.”
For Spear, completing the construction of a project is just the start of the organization’s work.
“We are equally focused on being a good asset manager and owner, and providing enhanced services that are designed to improve our residents’ lives for the long term,” he says. “Our informal motto is, ‘We Build Futures.’”
Spear’s leadership extends to several industry organizations. He is the past board chair of the California Housing Consortium (CHC) and is on the board of the Housing Partnership Network.
“Sean was the leader of the CHC board during a critical time for our organization, when we first began our work to place Proposition 1, the $11.25 billion state housing bond on this November’s ballot,” says CHC executive director Ray Pearl. “This was not an easy task, with all kinds of political obstacles and competing priorities standing in the way. Sean played a critical role in helping craft a winning strategy and leading this effort—working behind the scenes in his quiet, respectful, consensus-driven way to keep our organization united and this legislation moving over multiple legislative sessions.”
While some leaders try to divide to get things done, Spear takes a different approach, according to Pearl.
“He has an ability to bring people together and keep them together—always staying calm and finding common ground,” he says. “We needed every bit of his unrelenting focus to qualify Prop 1 for the ballot, and, if we can get this measure passed, Sean is one of the leaders who should be recognized for securing one of the largest housing bond measures in the nation’s history.”
On Nov. 3, California voters passed Prop 1, which will help fund up to 40,000 multifamily rental units, while also helping another 40,000 households buy a home.
Before CHW, Spear was assistant general manager at the Los Angeles Housing + Community Investment Department and served as the executive director of the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee before that. He has also held roles at Hunt Mortgage Group and Fannie Mae.