Naomi Lopez was working for the County of Orange as an Affordable Housing Specialist in their Housing and Community Development Department. Her role was to push for affordable housing to be expanded throughout the region by taking a regional approach at a local and legislative level. The main responsibilities were project management and tracking, interpreting new state policies and grants, and providing technical assistance to the Orange County Housing Finance Trust.
As a Civicspark Fellow in the 2018-19 service year, she worked with CA Dept. of Housing and Community Development to help certain jurisdictions build capacity to introduce more affordable housing developments. She collaborated with team members from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research along with our lead consultant, Placeworks, in order to actively work on an assessment tool that will allow jurisdictions to find recommended priority policy areas, track their projects, and the costs of specific planning activities under the first year of Senate Bill 2 Planning Grants.
Naomi received her B.S. in Community and Regional Development from University of California, Davis and is planning on getting her Masters Degree in Public Policy with an emphasis in Housing and Urban Policy. She also plans to run for office one day.
In her free time she likes to listen to crime, science, political and wellness podcasts along with reading a variety of different genres, watching vegetarian recipes on Youtube, and video chatting with friends. Fellows can reach out to talk about careers in local or state government, housing policy and disparities, racial equity, resume building or cover letters, or to discuss the latest season of The Great British Bake Off.