Evelyn Friedman serves the City of Boston as Cabinet Chief of Housing and Director of the Department of Neighborhood Development (DND). As a member of Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s Cabinet, she advises him on housing and small business policy, legislation, and community relations. As DND Director, Evelyn manages a 200-person department with $130 million budget, including the city’s federal grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provide funding for housing, economic development, and human service programs. In addition, she oversees the management of the four program divisions within DND, including: the Boston Home Center, Neighborhood Housing Development, Office of Business Development, and Real Estate Management and Sales.
Since joining the City in the spring of 2008, Friedman has assisted Mayor Menino in significantly expanding the City’s nationally recognized foreclosure prevention and reclamation initiative, and has led the development of the City’s third Leading the Way housing strategy, an ambitious campaign that calls for a dynamic approach to four key targets: housing Boston's workforce; addressing the foreclosure crisis; reversing the rise in homelessness, and preserving and stabilizing the City's rental housing market. Friedman has also overseen the creation of a new home repair loan program that helps lower income homeowners finance needed repairs and improvements in this tight credit market.
In an effort to further Mayor Menino’s business agenda, Friedman enabled the launch of Boston Invests in Growth, a new mezzanine loan pool to help spur commercial development stalled by tight credit markets, and Boston Buying Power, an innovative bulk-purchasing program designed to allow small businesses to buy energy at rates previously available only to larger companies.
Prior to her appointment to Mayor Menino’s cabinet, Evelyn Friedman spent 18 years as the executive director of Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation, a Roxbury-based non-profit organization with a budget of over $6.5 million and a staff of 45 employees. Under Friedman’s leadership, Nuestra grew to own and manage more than 700 units of rental housing and 65,000 square feet of commercial space. Ms. Friedman has also served on a number of boards, including: Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation, Boston Community Capital, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, Shirley Eustis House, Third Sector New England, Neighborhood Capital Corporation, and The Boston Private Industry Council. Ms. Friedman is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts and Boston College.