Lourdes Castro Ramírez
President & CEO
Lourdes Castro Ramírez is a nationally recognized housing and community development leader with a distinguished career spanning federal, state, and local government. Throughout her tenure, she has consistently driven large-scale policy initiatives and operational excellence to expand affordable housing and bridge the gap between policy and practice.
As the President and CEO of HACLA, the second-largest public housing authority in the United States, Castro Ramírez leads an agency serving over 200,000 residents and manages a budget of $2.4 billion. Her leadership focuses on a "people, place, and pathways" framework, aimed at scaling affordable housing production and enhancing economic mobility for families.
Key Areas of Impact & Expertise:
* Federal Leadership: Appointed by President Barack Obama, she led the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Public and Indian Housing, managing a $26 billion budget and overseeing programs that housed millions of families nationwide.
* State Policy: As Secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency under Governor Gavin Newsom, she directed 12 state entities and 40 boards to streamline homelessness solutions, safeguard civil rights, and accelerate housing preservation across the world’s fifth-largest economy.
* Local & Regional Strategy: Before returning to HACLA, she served as Chief Housing and Homelessness Solutions Officer for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, where she was instrumental in fast-tracking affordable housing and forging the regional partnerships necessary to address the city’s homelessness crisis. She continues to serve as a strategic advisor to the Mayor.
A practitioner at heart, Castro Ramírez’s career also includes transformative executive roles at the San Antonio Housing Authority and the University Health System Foundation.
She holds a Master of Arts in Urban Planning and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Chicano Studies from UCLA, a foundation that informs her lifelong commitment to building equitable, resilient communities.