The Seattle Social Housing Developer has its first leader. The authority announced that Roberto Jimenez has been appointed as its inaugural Chief Executive Officer.

Jimenez’s career in providing affordable housing includes his work with Mutual Housing California where officials say he doubled the organization’s housing portfolio and maintained a housing development pipeline with $500 million in active real estate development while “successfully engaging residents in board governance.” As Chair of the Board of Housing California, he helped lead statewide housing policy and advocacy efforts,” SSHD says.

“We are really excited to welcome Roberto Jimenez as our CEO,” Kaileah Baldwin, Chair of the SSHD Board, said in the announcement. “Roberto’s expertise in affordable housing leadership, building connections, and organizational visioning are exactly what we need to advance this new model of social housing.”

CHS reported here on the next steps for social housing development in Seattle after I-135’s victory in the February 2023 special election. The vote to establish a public developer to acquire and take over management of existing properties for affordable housing while also developing new projects showed strong support for the effort across the city with especially strong support across most of District 3.

Funding more affordable housing could also get a boost with a Let’s Build Social Housing ballot initiative that would add a 5% tax on companies for every dollar over a million paid to a Seattle employee in annual compensation including salary, stock, and bonuses.

SSHD did not include updates on the effort to push forward on the initiative in the announcement of the Jimenez selection.

The selection comes as Seattle and King County struggle with an ongoing affordability and homelessness crisis — and challenges in forming effective leadership for organizations being shaped to address the issues. In June, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority picked federal Health and Human Services official Kelly Kinnison as its next CEO o help it steer through financial challenges as it takes on the region’s ongoing crisis..

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