Theresa Parker
Executive Director
California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA)
Theresa Parker has served five California governors with a sustained commitment to serving the public. Her two decades of experience in the state’s Department of Finance enabled her to save California taxpayers millions of dollars.
Parker’s leadership transformed the CalHFA (the state agency that finances below-market rate loans to create affordable rental housing and assists first-time home buyers) from a niche lender to a business that has increased its fund equity from approximately $520 million to $1.3 billion. More Californians are now able to live in decent rental housing and have been able to enter the housing market.
Parker also serves as secretary of the Board of Directors of the National Council of State Housing Agencies and is a member of the Fannie Mae National Housing Advisory Council. She and her Massachusetts counterpart negotiated a partnership with Fannie Mae for all housing finance agencies in the country. This resulted in a 60 percent reduction in the guarantee fees Fannie Mae charges, meaning there are more funds for housing opportunities for low-income citizens across the nation.
In 1991, Parker led the state’s efforts to realign mental health, social services, and health programs between the state and the counties. At that time, more than $1.7 billion of state program costs were transferred to counties and specific revenue-raising mechanisms were put in place to pay for these services. The public benefited through the more stable funding and the discretion counties have to meet local program needs. In 1997, she led the California welfare reform efforts.
Parker has developed other governmental leaders through her own work with staff and by leading the Department of Finance’s efforts to bring talent from outside of the civil service, at the master’s degree level and above, to increase the talent pool for state service. In 2004, the National Council of State Housing Agencies recognized the New Employment Orientation Program that Parker developed for CalHFA as an important innovation that increased employee retention.
Previous positions have included undersecretary of health and welfare for the state of California and chief deputy director for policy, Department of Finance. She is a Board Member of WIND, Hope for Homeless Teens in Sacramento, and received the 2003 Distinguished Public Official Award from the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California. Chester Newland and Elizabeth Hill nominated Theresa Parker. |
