National search underway for the Center’s next executive leader.
As announced earlier this month, Julie Gugin will be retiring as president of the Minnesota Homeownership Center this coming summer. The Center’s Executive Committee has been working through a leadership succession plan for the last several months. This plan includes the launch of a national search for the Center’s new leader with help from Marcum Nonprofit Executive Search, a recruiting firm that specializes in nonprofit and social sector leadership broadly, and the affordable housing and community development sectors specifically. The position announcement will be available in January, with the goal of having a new leader selected and in-place by the end of the summer.
Julie joined the Center as its president in 2007, just as the sub-prime mortgage crisis metastasized and ushered in the Great Recession. Over the next few years, she oversaw major expansion of the Center’s and the Homeownership Advisors Network’s foreclosure prevention work as homeowners struggled to keep their homes. Since 2008, the Center has helped to prevent nearly 40,000 foreclosures in Minnesota, with a combined preservation of more than $3.2 billion in community wealth.
During her tenure, Gugin transformed the Center into a nationally-recognized thought leader in the affordable homeownership space by:
- Playing a key role in the development of National Industry Standards for Homebuyer Education and Counseling in 2010.
- Overseeing the development and launch of the Framework® online homebuyer education enterprise in 2012 with fellow founding partner Housing Partnership Network. (This for-profit social enterprise generated significant financial reserves for the Center over ten years of joint ownership, and positioned the Center for long-term financial sustainability.)
- Increasing the credibility and professionalism of the Center and its Homeownership Advisors Network by earning status as a HUD Intermediary in 2013.
- Being appointed as a member of one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s first Consumer Advisory Boards in 2014.
- Leading the Center through the economic turmoil of COVID’s 2020 onset and its ongoing long-tail aftermath.
- Pursuing continuous improvement for the Home Stretch homebuyer education curriculum, most recently revised and moved to an online platform in 2023.
- Moving the Center into the advocacy arena and working with Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity and Minnesota Realtors® to successfully secure more than $100 million in state funding for the establishment of the First Generation Homebuyers Community Downpayment Assistance Fund (launching in 2024).
The Center was founded in 1993 to help all Minnesotans achieve sustainable homeownership. Today, it sits at the crux of society’s work to dismantle the effects of past racism and systemic injustice, which left us with staggering racial homeownership and wealth gaps. The Center now serves as a recognized and respected policy thought leader, a powerful and appreciated player in industry circles, and a beacon for lower-income households as they pursue homeownership and its wealth-building potential for themselves and their families. Julie Gugin was instrumental in where this journey has taken us, and her leadership will continue to have a positive impact on the lives all Minnesotans for generations to come.