From veteran to nonprofit housing leader

While New Yorkers continue to face increasingly higher median rents, nonprofit developers are striving to replenish the city’s affordable housing supply. 

IMPACCT Brooklyn has stewarded the community for over 60 years, converting deteriorating properties into affordable living spaces while helping low-income residents retain housing amidst the borough’s mass waves of gentrification. From the recently completed 811 Lexington Avenue Senior Residences in Bedford-Stuyvesant to the 778 Myrtle Avenue supportive housing development slated for completion, the nonprofit is one of Brooklyn’s most prolific affordable housing developers. 

Since last summer, the organization has welcomed new leadership – military veteran Jamal C. Robinson, who also boasts experience in the financial sector. A graduate of the United States Military Academy in West Point, he spent eight years in the U.S. Army as an officer, completing his service at the rank of captain. Holding three graduate degrees, he went on to JPMorgan Chase where he helped facilitate $317 million in affordable housing constructions and permanent loans to create 2,296 affordable rental units for veterans, seniors and individuals with special needs. 

As executive director, Robinson brings fresh insight into nonprofit leadership, as he underlines elements of integrity and teamwork in his new role. Robinson spoke to New York Nonprofit Media on how his time in the military and finance sector equipped him with a fresh perspective to deepen IMPACCT’s affordable housing developments.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

What led you to the world of real estate development from your time in the military? 

Well, I come from a family of blue collar workers who were carpenters and the women in my family were nurses. But my grandfather, he migrated from Alabama to Ohio and began owning property – and that was my introduction into real estate. I always enjoyed helping him but I also saw how he was able to serve the community through having tenants. With that being said, I left the United States Army and I wanted a new challenge. I saw that housing was a continuous issue and I wanted to serve in that way. Once I had the leadership skills and the skill set to lead in any industry that's a passion of mine, I turned to all things real estate and community development to see how I could serve. 

I understand that you have master’s degrees in environmental management, real estate development and public administration. So you must understand this industry through a variety of lenses. How do you incorporate this knowledge into your work? 

I always want to have a holistic and systematic perspective into solving any type of problem. Specifically, solving the housing crisis in our country is going to take many different perspectives and partnerships. I incorporate my educational background [and] talk to different partners and speak as a subject matter expert in each discipline, while having the ability to make it simplistic to someone who has no clue as to what these fears of influences are. From my experience in the United States Army, whatever mission I was asked to complete, whether that information came from the Pentagon all the way down to my specific unit, I always wanted everyone, to the lowest ranking soldier to understand what we were doing and why. That's how you build ultimate cohesion within not only a business, but a community and team. So I think that is a strength of mine, that I'm able to take complex issues and make them plain with clarity – especially down to the community level where it's needed.

What are some holistic leadership goals that you hope to implement as executive director of IMPACCT? 

I think that some of my holistic goals with our current staff is to ensure that everyone has the tools and resources to work towards our strategic goals and put them in the best place possible to execute the vision at hand. Another holistic, or high-level goal of mine is that every single employee walks away from IMPACCT Brooklyn, not only feeling like they became a better human being by accomplishing their goals, but to walk away with a sense of pride that they were part of something bigger than themselves. 

While at JPMorgan Chase, you helped facilitate a lot of money towards affordable housing, creating nearly 2,300 units of housing, which is no small feat. What was this experience like? 

It was very challenging. But in many ways it felt like the perfect transition out of the United States military, where excellence and nothing short of winning is an excuse. Some of the major challenges were being able to work with various real estate developers and understand challenges from their perspective. When it comes to affordable housing, it’s supply and demand. The cost of living is continuously, dramatically going up, and it's making it difficult for low-income individuals and families to afford housing. So we had to really brainstorm to build products specifically for developers in this current economic climate to solve the direct challenge of the supply and the shortage of affordable housing units. I was fortunate enough to be a part of an amazing team, so I'm very appreciative of my experience at JPMorgan Chase. 

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about affordable housing?

I think one of the biggest misnomers about affordable housing is that it's only for formerly homeless or extremely low-income individuals. We're at a point in our country where everyone is affected by economic inequality and the rising costs that are happening dramatically in every city, making it difficult for everyone. So I believe it is a misnomer that affordable housing is a handout. And it's not right. It literally scales across various different aspects of our communities and it's an issue that we're all facing collectively. 

I’m curious, what’s it like to advocate and create more affordable housing supply within this climate of gentrification we see happening across places like Brooklyn?It is one of the most rewarding things ever for me, personally. I come from a very humble economic status, and I know what it's like to grow up in a space where you're on edge and don't know if you can survive. And it's hard to focus in school, because you're moving from place to place. I just have a heart for service and the resiliency to fight for the well-being of residents in an increasingly gentrifying environment and retain, protect and develop more housing that fits everyone. That's the beauty of New York City. Just the diversity in its people which I think is a microcosm of our country. So to retain that is worth fighting for.

Do you anticipate any significant differences in the types of projects you envision, coming from the commercial space into the nonprofit sector? 

The major difference now is we're going to have a bit more innovation and artistic freedom to reimagine housing in a different way. I'm going to have to lean on different and unique partners to be able to form a vision to create housing in a way that uniquely fits this community. So it will definitely be different because in the commercial space, sometimes the limits are set but now I have an opportunity to dream and work with different partners, so that's exciting.

Being a veteran yourself, you must be aware of veteran homelessness being a persistent issue. Do you plan to specifically allocate any housing for this population? 

Very, very much so. That is one of the things that I bring to this seat. I come from that experience and that local perspective as a veteran, so I will definitely be using that to ensure that IMPACCT is more innovative. I talked about partnerships, bringing in partnerships that we have not done before, right? Because this is a need. So to your point, the answer is yes, yes, and yes, again.