Ben Metcalf is the Managing Director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley where he leads both the expansion and deepening of Terner Center’s work solving housing affordability challenges through policy, practice and innovations. In 2015, Ben was appointed by former Governor Jerry Brown to lead California’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), a role he held until 2019. During his tenure at the State, Ben played an instrumental role in the passage and implementation of the 2017 Housing Package and oversaw the Department during a period of significant expansion of the state’s financial and regulatory reach into housing and land use matters. In addition, he served on the board of directors of the California Housing Partnership Corporation, the California Housing Finance Agency, and was the founding chair of the State of California’s Homelessness Coordinating and Finance Council. Prior to joining HCD, Ben worked in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., including as an appointee of President Obama in the role of Deputy Assistant Secretary overseeing HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing Programs.
Ben Metcalf is the Managing Director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley where he leads both the expansion and deepening of Terner Center’s work solving housing affordability challenges through policy, practice and innovations.
In 2015, Ben was appointed by former Governor Jerry Brown to lead California’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), a role he held until 2019. During his tenure at the State, Ben played an instrumental role in the passage and implementation of the 2017 Housing Package and oversaw the Department during a period of significant expansion of the state’s financial and regulatory reach into housing and land use matters. In addition, he served on the board of directors of the California Housing Partnership Corporation, the California Housing Finance Agency, and was the founding chair of the State of California’s Homelessness Coordinating and Finance Council. Prior to joining HCD, Ben worked in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., including as an appointee of President Obama in the role of Deputy Assistant Secretary overseeing HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing Programs. His responsibilities included oversight of the Federal Housing Administration multifamily guaranteed loan portfolio and a subsidized affordable housing portfolio representing 30,000 multifamily properties across the U.S. As senior advisor to the FHA Commissioner on multifamily housing, he developed key Administration priorities related to energy efficiency, housing for the elderly, disabled and formerly homeless, and comprehensive neighborhood revitalization. Before that, he developed mixed-income and mixed-use communities with California-based BRIDGE Housing Corporation. As a senior project manager at BRIDGE, he sourced affordable housing opportunities and had day-to-day responsibility for a portfolio of major projects from initial due diligence and site acquisition through approvals, design and construction, bringing forward ~$125 million in development activity. He played key roles in implementing community engagement strategy and successfully securing environmental and land use approvals for four major Bay Area land opportunities representing ~$1.5 billion of new development.
Ben is also the Chief Executive Officer of Terner Housing Innovation Labs, Inc., a nonprofit organization formed to advance the applied innovation work of UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, and is Principal of Stronger Foundations LLC, a housing policy and practice consulting firm. He holds an appointment as adjunct professor with the University of California Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning. He has a Masters in Public Policy and Urban Planning from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College.
