RuthAnne Visnauskas New Commissioner of NYC HPD

RuthAnne Visnauskas was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development in September, 2013. 

Prior to taking on this role, she was HPD’s Deputy Commissioner for Development, and was responsible for overseeing the annual housing production goals of Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan (NHMP) to finance the creation and preservation of 165,000 units of affordable housing by the end of the 2014 fiscal year.

Ms. Visnauskas began working at HPD in 2006, initially serving as Executive Director of Large Scale Planning before being promoted in 2008 to Assistant Commissioner for New Construction Finance where she led several agency initiatives including programs to develop middle-income housing. Prior to her appointment as Deputy Commissioner she served as Associate Commissioner for Preservation with a focus on creating financing strategies and programs to aid in the acquisition and rehabilitation of distressed multifamily properties throughout the City.

Prior to joining HPD, Ms. Visnauskas was the Director of Housing for Clinton Housing Development Company. She received a B.A. in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters in Urban Planning from the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University.

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is the largest municipal housing preservation and development agency in the nation. The agency’s mission is to promote housing equality and create and sustain viable neighborhoods for New Yorkers though housing education, outreach, loan and development programs and enforcement of housing standards.

HPD works with its governmental, community, non-profit, and for-profit partners to strengthen neighborhoods increase the supply of well-maintained, affordable housing and to enable more New Yorkers to become homeowners.

Today, vacant buildings and lots that were once a blight on many of the City's neighborhoods have been transformed into safe, affordable homes for families.

 http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/home/home.shtml