Botswana RPCV Nancy Yuill, executive director of the Clackamas Community Land Trust steps down after overseeing a five-year period of rapid growth for the nonprofit affordable housing organization



During Yuill's five-year tenure, the land trust grew from 12 to 29 homes, including construction of a new 14-home subdivision near Milwaukie that won a national green building award from The Home Depot Foundation. The land trust also opened a new homeownership resource center where anyone can take homeowner education classes, get credit counseling, or get help with financial planning. The center is busy with classes several nights a week. Yuill also designed and launched a program to help 30 buyers purchase and rehabilitate homes over three years. Its focus is preserving an affordable stock of homes in the area near Clackamas Town Center including Overland Park, where the arrival of light rail and accompanying redevelopment is expected to push up home prices. Before coming to the Land Trust, Yuill began her career in banking but grew disillusioned by the promotion of consumer credit and quit to join the Peace Corps. She worked in a number of positions in Botswana, Lesotho, Uganda, and Ghana. Her jobs ranged from training Peace Corps members to working in the business office of a trade school for young boys. She also worked for an organization that helps foster parents of Ugandan orphans obtain business training and micro-financing to increase their income and better feed and clothe the orphans in their care. Nancy Yuill now hopes to return to Africa, where she first worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1980s and continued to work through most of the 1990s.

Botswana RPCV Nancy Yuill, executive director of the Clackamas Community Land Trust steps down after overseeing a five-year period of rapid growth for the nonprofit affordable housing organization

Director of Clackamas land trust steps down

Nonprofit - Under Nancy Yuill, the agency doubled its affordable housing in the county

Thursday, October 11, 2007

SARAH HUNSBERGER
The Oregonian Staff

The executive director of the Clackamas Community Land Trust has stepped down after overseeing a five-year period of rapid growth for the nonprofit affordable housing organization.

Nancy Yuill now hopes to return to Africa, where she first worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1980s and continued to work through most of the 1990s.

The new executive director, Sarah Buckley of Portland, shares a similar background. Buckley recently returned from helping Sri Lankan communities rebuild from the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia.

The land trust helps people of low and moderate incomes purchase homes by covering the cost of the land where the house sits. When homeowners move, the homes must be sold to other qualifying families, creating a permanent stock of affordable housing. The agency builds new homes and also helps buyers remodel older homes, focusing on energy efficiency and environmentally responsible building techniques.

During Yuill's five-year tenure, the land trust grew from 12 to 29 homes, including construction of a new 14-home subdivision near Milwaukie that won a national green building award from The Home Depot Foundation.

The land trust also opened a new homeownership resource center where anyone can take homeowner education classes, get credit counseling, or get help with financial planning. The center is busy with classes several nights a week.

Yuill also designed and launched a program to help 30 buyers purchase and rehabilitate homes over three years. Its focus is preserving an affordable stock of homes in the area near Clackamas Town Center including Overland Park, where the arrival of light rail and accompanying redevelopment is expected to push up home prices.

Before coming to the Land Trust, Yuill began her career in banking but grew disillusioned by the promotion of consumer credit and quit to join the Peace Corps.

She worked in a number of positions in Botswana, Lesotho, Uganda, and Ghana. Her jobs ranged from training Peace Corps members to working in the business office of a trade school for young boys. She also worked for an organization that helps foster parents of Ugandan orphans obtain business training and micro-financing to increase their income and better feed and clothe the orphans in their care.

Yuill, who left the land trust in September, is continuing to volunteer there while looking for a job in Africa.

Buckley, her replacement, spent several years working for the international development agency Mercy Corps, based in Portland. Most recently, she led the Mercy Corps office in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, where she oversaw a staff of 20. The office helped local residents build community centers, schools and other infrastructure by giving grants and providing other support.

She also has worked in volunteer and paid capacities with the Community Alliance of Tenants, Affordable Housing NOW! and Northwest Housing Alternatives, the land trust's parent agency.

She grew up as one of four children of a single mother, which she said made her appreciate the impact of housing assistance, such as the federal Section 8 voucher her mother received. She spent many years of her childhood living in a house with unfinished walls and no heat except for a wood stove, ashamed to invite friends over.

"I feel strongly connected to the issue of affordable housing," she said.

Buckley and her husband just bought their first home in Portland and plan to take a break from international travel, she said.

Sarah Hunsberger: 503-294-5922; shunsberger@news.oregonian.com

Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: October, 2007; Peace Corps Botswana; Directory of Botswana RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Botswana RPCVs; Oregon

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