Homeless Intiatives:
We're excited to announce that our Homeless Initiatives Department has a new Director - Laurie Murray!
Laurie started at MaineHousing 23 years ago as a Senior Program Officer in the Homeownership Department. She was promoted in 1999 to the Loan Servicing Manager, and in 2009 she was again promoted to the Assistant Director of Finance. Laurie has extensive experience in management, coaching, mentoring, and program design, along with strong budgeting and project management skills. She's excited to take on her new director's role!
Additionally, Kelly Watson and Linda Plourde will join the Homeless Initiatives team on September 30. As the Manager of Homeless Initiatives, Kelly will supervise and manage the day-to-day operations, project management, and compliance oversight of the Homeless Initiatives Department. She joined MaineHousing in 2013 as an Administrative Assistant and was quickly promoted to Homeless Information Resource Officer. She became a Housing Choice Voucher Occupancy Specialist in 2016 and was promoted to her current position of Team Leader in the HCV Department in 2018. Kelly completed MaineHousing’s Leadership Development Program and is a Certified Occupancy Specialist. We are very excited that Kelly will bring her knowledge and experience to the Homeless Initiatives Department.
As the Program Officer – Program Monitoring, Linda will be responsible for coordinating and overseeing the monitoring, compliance, and technical assistance to all Emergency Shelter and Housing Assistance Program Grantees across the State of Maine. She is currently a Senior Human Services Counselor for the City of Portland Oxford Street Shelter where she administers the Emergency Solutions grant and Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program. Her extensive experience with the various homelessness programs and the populations they serve, along with her in-depth understanding of state-wide resources will be a huge benefit to us.
Housing Choice Vouchers Department:
Sarah Johnson accepted the position of Housing Navigator for HCV. In her current role as Occupancy Specialist, Sarah spends a lot of her time building relationships with landlords and tenants to help them find units. She is great at connecting resources with people and will work closely with Barbara Brann to build on our case management model and our landlord outreach efforts to ensure that we utilize all of the resources we have to house vulnerable Mainers!
In evaluating the vacancy left with Sarah’s transition and the skills of all of our candidates Melissa Ames will become our new Occupancy Specialist. Melissa came to MaineHousing having worked for Mid-Maine Homeless shelter as a navigator. She worked closely with Home to Stay and Stability Through Engagement Program and has a base knowledge of how the voucher program works and is excited to work closely with our voucher holders to maintain housing stability.
The Intake Position will be filled by a new hire, Kim Clark. Kim worked as a property manager and has recently moved back to Maine. She housed voucher holders in her properties and worked closely with the area housing authorities and is very excited to join the MaineHousing team.