COVER STORY
Mary Ellen Shay Executive Director of the California Association of Local Housing Finance Agencies The 21st century has seen remarkable progress in the development and economic prosperity of modern-day women. Can you believe it, we have a woman vice president! And that’s not all, some top executive offices are now womenled and today, we are looking at one a phenomenal woman who I have known personally and professionally. MARY ELLEN SHAY’S JOURNEY IN REAL ESTATE Mary Ellen Shay the Executive Director of the California Association of Local Housing Finance Agencies, a position she has held for 31 years. Mary began her career as a VISTA volunteer in 1970. She worked in Shasta County and founded the Self Help Home Improvement Project with her VISTA colleagues. She has worked at the local, state, and federal levels in developing affordable housing and has had a private consulting business since 1986. However, behind this remarkable success, Mary has seen it all, she was there when discrimination was still ‘legal’ and helped form the infrastructure that would later come to fight redlining in the country. BUT HOW DID SHE GET STARTED? She came to Confront Redlining and Discrimination Heads-on! 50 | MAY 2022
Mary came into the housing market when redlining was widely practiced and accepted in the country. This had been a practice ‘encouraged’ by the federal government and was explicitly designed to segregate the country’s housing stock. At the time Ellen was coming into the industry, the housing market could only be described in terms of ‘red’ and ‘green’ areas. What had been happening in the years prior to the late 60s was that the government efforts were focused to provide housing to the white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families. Other people of color were left out of the new suburban communities. This was the environment back then. Mary began her career in housing in 1969. She was hired by the Southern Alameda County Economic Opportunity Agency, which was part of the Federal Poverty Program instituted by the thenpresident Lyndon Johnson in the 60s. This was
