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William Huang is the director of the Housing and Career Services department for the city of Pasadena, CA. The department provides a wide array of housing, homeless, and employment programs, as well as funding for social service and economic development activities, with an annual budget of approximately $25 million. Pasadena is actively engaged in affordable housing, with a highly effective inclusionary housing ordinance, numerous transit-oriented developments, an innovative Housing First program, and a strong local government voice for new affordable housing legislation.
In 2014 the Urban Land Institute recognized Pasadena, CA, along with Austin, TX, for having the best housing policies in the country. The U.S. Conference of Mayors’ reported Pasadena’s 54% decrease in homelessness from 2009-2016 as the most among 32 cities in 21 states included their homeless and hunger report. The city’s homeless population went from over 1,200 to less than 600, despite dramatically reduced financial and staff resources. This was accomplished in large part by a concerted focus on providing permanently supportive housing, rapid rehousing and homeless prevention programs.
Mr. Huang’s background includes experience as the architect, developer and/or public lender for thousands of units of affordable housing throughout Los Angeles County. Prior to joining the city of Pasadena, Mr. Huang was the housing director for the county of Los Angeles, which during his tenure implemented the Los Angeles County Housing Innovation Fund, a $20 million revolving loan fund, and the LA County Housing Resource Center, the largest housing search website in the nation.
He is the former deputy director of the Los Angeles Community Design Center (now Abode Communities), where he oversaw affordable housing development and design for numerous housing and community facilities. He was a senior program associate with the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s real estate consulting and lending division, and provided an acquisition loan and syndicated historic tax credits for the Old Bank District loft housing project in downtown Los Angeles. This project was the first to use a newly adopted adaptive reuse ordinance, and demonstrated the utility of that ordinance as well as the depth of the market for residential development in downtown Los Angeles.
Huang is a former licensed architect with degrees from Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He is committed to capacity building, providing training in affordable housing throughout the nation and helping to establish several leading nonprofit affordable housing organizations in Los Angeles County. He has been the recipient of numerous awards for his affordable housing efforts, including induction into the California Housing Hall of Fame.
