Introducing Soni Gupta

The Boston Foundation’s new Director of Neighborhoods & Housing comes to the Foundation from a 7-year stint as the Executive Director of Home Funders, an affordable housing collaborative. There, she worked on all aspects of the collaborative’s operations, including oversight of its loans and housing production goals. 

In her new role, Gupta will drive the development, implementation and evaluation of one of the Foundation’s major strategic priorities: addressing the need for affordable homes for the people of Greater Boston.

“I am very excited to join the team at the Boston Foundation,” says Gupta. “This organization has an inspiring history of helping to launch and support some of the city’s most important affordable housing organizations.” The Foundation was “there at the beginning” with critical early funding for 15 major housing organizations, including Home Funders and Citizens Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA), where Gupta serves as President of the Board and co-chairs the Homelessness Committee.

“I’m especially interested in some of the work the Foundation is doing across sectors, such as the Health Starts at Home initiative, which highlights the importance of affordable housing to children’s health outcomes with the goal of decreasing health care costs and homelessness.”

Gupta has more than 20 years of experience in the field of affordable housing, with extensive knowledge of development and finance as well as first-hand experience of what it takes to successfully develop and sustain housing for very low-income families.

“We know firsthand of Soni’s skills and talents,” says Orlando Watkins, Vice President for Programs. “Her deep background makes her uniquely suited to the challenge of strengthening our community’s neighborhoods and promoting affordable housing for all of our city’s residents.”

Gupta received her Bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Sir J.J. College of Architecture in Mumbai, India, and a Master of Science in Architecture Studies from MIT.  Prior to Home Funders, she was a consultant to several nonprofit housing producers across the state, and before that was Director of Housing at the Somerville Community Corporation and Interim Executive Director at the AIDS Housing Corporation.