Paula Stuart has more than twenty-nine years experience in housing and community Development.  While holding senior management positions in two Massachusetts cities, she designed, implemented and managed programs that have received HUD Best Practices awards and that have been presented in Congress as pilot programs.  Ms. Stuart is a HUD-certified Public Housing Manager (PHM) and holds both state and national certifications as a homebuyer counselor. During her time in municipal government, she was responsible for writing and implementing inclusionary housing and linkage ordinances, and for developing, implementing and managing one of the first locally-funded Affordable Housing Trust Funds in Massachusetts. During the mid-1990s she led a large Massachusetts housing authority through a major transition period, resolving issues that had stalled modernization projects, assessing management systems and preparing a transition report for the authority’s commissioners.

In addition to her housing and community development experience, her background includes more than a decade of public relations, marketing and fundraising experience for large national organizations, hospitals, universities and museums. Since joining COG in 2007, Ms. Stuart has been involved in the firm’s CDBG work for several municipal clients in Massachusetts and Connecticut. She has had responsibilities for the firm’s contracts involving compliance monitoring of affordable rental and homeownership developments and for state and federal labor standards review.  Paula is responsible for most of the firm’s affordable housing marketing and lottery work for client communities and has been involved in preparation of ADA Transition Plans for six Massachusetts communities.