LOS ANGELES (March 3, 2021) – Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) has named Jimar Wilson as vice president and Southern California market leader. In his new role starting on March 22, Wilson will work with Enterprise’s partners from the Central Valley to San Diego to build and preserve affordable homes so that Southern Californians not only make rent, they build futures.
Wilson will lead the regional implementation of Enterprise’s ambitious five-year, nationwide Strategic Plan and its three organizational priorities: increase housing supply, advance racial equity and build resilience and upward mobility. The strategic plan builds upon Enterprise’s work in Southern California, which includes $1.3 billion invested since 1997 to create and preserve more than 24,000 affordable homes.
“Our communities are facing uncertainty as we begin to reopen and recover from the pandemic, with Black, Indigenous and people of color bearing the greatest burden,” said Jacqueline Waggoner, president, Solutions division, Enterprise, who previously held the Southern California market leader role. “As we move forward, we will partner with our communities to advance racial equity and build the path to systems change. Jimar will lead that work with passion, experience and creativity.”
Wilson has over 20 years of community development experience across the public, private and nonprofit sectors. He joins Enterprise from the American Business Bank, where he served as vice president and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) officer, overseeing the CRA program in Greater Los Angeles, Orange County and the Inland Empire.
Previously, he held regional community development manager positions at Boston Private, covering Greater Los Angeles, and at Northern Trust, covering the bank’s Arizona, California and Colorado markets. Wilson also worked at West Angeles Community Development Corporation as real estate project manager and housing director, overseeing housing development, asset management and financial literacy programs. He began his career in the field as a city planner for the City of Ypsilanti, Michigan.
“Southern Californians have long struggled with high housing costs, resulting in the region having the largest population of renters experiencing severe costs burdens and unsheltered homeless individuals and families. Our housing crisis has only worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Wilson said. “My colleagues and I will leverage programs, policy, technical assistance and capital to make home and community steppingstones to more.”
Wilson currently serves on the Board of Directors of Crenshaw Family YMCA, Ebony Repertory Theatre and A Step to Freedom. He is an adjunct Assistant Professor in Community Planning & Economic Development at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. In 2015, Wilson was the recipient of the Men of Valor Award from the Los Angeles NAACP Youth Council
Wilson holds a bachelor’s degree in social welfare from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a public policy and international affairs fellow. He is also a graduate of the Ross Minority Program in Real Estate at the University of Southern California.
Media Contact
Karen Whitaker, Director, Marketing Strategy
Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.
kwhitaker@enterprisecommunity.org