About me
Erica Sims has worked in the non-profit management, affordable housing development, and community organizing fields for over 18 years. Her focus has been social and economic justice through housing and economic development. Ms. Sims has held private sector, nonprofit, and government roles and has overseen the development of over 2,500 units of affordable housing and 50,000 square feet of commercial development space in new construction and renovation projects.
Erica spent her career’s first decade in New York City working in local government and then the private sector developing a mix of market rate and affordable housing. Mixed use, large-scale projects were her focus including the 150-acre Arver-by-the-Sea development in the Rockaways, Queens (NYC). Focusing on LIHTC projects and supportive housing, she worked for Lighten Gale Group in Chicago covering deeply affordable projects throughout Illinois such as housing for people living with HIV, short-term housing for pregnant teens and supportive housing for the formerly unhoused.
Immediately prior to joining HDAdvisors in 2017, she was the Deputy Executive Director of Mutual Housing Association of New York (MHANY), a non-profit affordable housing developer, owner, and manager with a portfolio over 1,500 units of affordable housing. MHANY is a unique affordable housing nonprofit in that it is a “mutual housing” association - a model in vogue in affordable housing in the mid-twentieth century but rarely in use today. A mutual housing association is exclusively governed by the low income residents who occupy the rental housing creating a rental cooperative style of government and housing management.
At HDAdvisors Erica focused on her work as CEO of the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust, supporting HDA client HousingForward Virginia and working on affordable housing production and policy work throughout Virginia.
She received a Bachelor's in Economics and a Bachelor's in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan and a Masters of Business Administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She lives in Richmond with her husband and daughter.
