Sarah Sheon Gerecke
Adjunct Professor of Urban Planning
Sarah Gerecke is principal at SSG Community Solutions LLC, creating program and policy solutions to complex affordable housing and community development challenges. Her clients include foundations, trade associations, nonprofits, and national thinktanks. An Adjunct Professor of Urban Planning, she teaches several graduate law and policy seminars at NYU on public management, land use, housing and community development in New York City.
From 2011 – 2019, Ms. Gerecke was Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Housing Counseling at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2018, HUD-approved housing counseling agencies assisted more than 1 million families to overcome housing barriers and achieve their housing goals. At HUD, her responsibilities have also included programs to increase access to affordable, quality housing and mortgage products, and initiatives to help families improve their financial and housing conditions.
From 2009 to 2011, Sarah was Executive Director of New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, a leading academic research center. From 2001 until 2009, Ms. Gerecke was Chief Executive Officer of Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) of NYC, where she supervised lending, education and real estate programs that assisted over 10,000 New York City residents each year. She has held leadership positions for a homeless housing provider, and she has held appointed positions in New York City government under Mayors Koch and Dinkins with
responsibilities for planning and implementation of major revitalization projects in Harlem, the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn.
She is a member of the Supreme Court bar, the New York State bar and a graduate of Harvard Law School and Princeton University. She lives in the Bronx, New York.