Tawkiyah Jordan
“The goal is to see people – wherever they land in the housing spectrum – as investors in their own housing and to help them understand that investing in themselves will yield returns.”
Tawkiyah, a professional urban planner and self-described “city scientist,” is a fierce advocate, ally, political strategist, convener, negotiator, policy expert and translator of power brokers and community stakeholders.
Serving currently as Senior Director of Housing and Community Strategy at Habitat for Humanity International, Tawkiyah is an expert in housing, especially regarding long-term affordability models.
A native New Yorker who spent much of her adolescence working in a Bronx youth center run by her mother, Tawkiyah studied urban planning in Michigan and worked as a planner in several locales before returning to the Bronx and applying for a job at Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. There she coordinated the group's long-term community development projects: cleaning the Bronx River, revamping Starlight Park and connecting the waterfront greenway, re-envisioning the troubled Sheridan Expressway.
Recent Projects
Hear from Tawkiyah
The heart of Tawkiyah's approach lies in leveraging her training, networks and skills to increase civic engagement among people often overlooked in decisions that impact them and their families directly. Utilizing her skills as a political strategist, convener, negotiator, policy expert, and powerbroker translator, Tawkiyah seeks to demystify decision-making in power-building for people who don’t typically have access to it.
Tawkiyah has the opportunity to partner with financial institutions, city governments, and community organizations to make investments at the local level and to require those investments to follow certain protocols that protect the individual’s return on investment.
Publications, Articles and Lectures
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Habitat for Humanity International launches initiative to close racial housing gap
Habitat for Humanity International announced it will invest over $25 million over the next three to five years to address inequities in the U.S. housing market.
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“Process is powerful because it is a tool we use to explore, introduce, open access, negotiate, dream, include, exclude and inspire.”