LA-HIP Graduate Spotlight: Dani Morales of LINC Housing
In Spring of 2020, Dani Morales had an undergraduate degree in public policy and a strong interest in pursuing affordable housing.
With 450 hours and an Americorps program completed, Dani is now working full time as an Assistant Project Manager at LINC Housing.
Dani is one of hundreds of passionate, community minded graduates of LISC LA’s Americorps program, which works with community partners on the ground to create new generations of community development experts every summer.
Dani spending time with her coworkers from LINC Housing. (Image courtesy of Dani Morales)
The LA Housing Initiatives Program (LA-HIP) is one of those programs – and it’s where Dani got her start in the field of affordable housing last summer. Working as an Assistant Project Manager at LINC Housing through LA-HIP, Dani said she was provided with new opportunities in the field, and has learned unique skill sets that help improve her community while developing her professional aspirations.
“When I was an intern, I think I worked with every project manager on our development team, which was a really great experience. I helped work with some of the construction sites, I attended meetings, I worked on administrative tasks that gave me the foundation to understand a lot of affordable housing development,” Dani said. “One of the things that I really enjoyed working on was looking at all of our contracts and figuring out how much money LINC has spent on supporting women and minority owned businesses.”
After the internship was completed, LINC Housing gave Dani a full time offer to stay in the Assistant Project Manager role. Recently, she has been working on a number of projects, including a 103 unit affordable housing development in North Hollywood and a new development in Wilmington, CA.
“Dani was always an AmeriCorps that took the initiative to connect with her cohort and learn as much as possible about the affordable housing field. Our team is thrilled that her AmeriCorps service provided her with the tools to transition into an Assistant Project Manager position.”
Dani’s time working at LINC through LA-HIP provided her with the foundation she needed to continue the jobs she had worked on as an intern. During the summer, she was working on a development called The Spark in Midtown, shadowing a project manager and helping with small tasks throughout the process. Now, she is leading the final touches on The Spark, and is currently spearheading the development of community oriented retail for soon to be tenants.
“The continuity of projects has been really great – since I was working with some of the PMs before I was officially assigned as the APM, I kind of know how they work, so that’s been really useful,” Dani said.
Having started at LINC during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dani was navigating a new job in an online format. With increasing vaccination rates and lower case counts, however, she has finally been able to visit some of the project sites that she has spent the last year working on.
“When I was doing research about what organization I was going to interview for through LA-HIP, I saw The Spark and fell in love with it, and it was so cool to actually work on the project,” Dani said. “Now, the tenants are moving in, and to actually see tenants there has been a really incredible experience.”
LISC LA strives to provide our partners, like LINC Housing, with the capacity to build a more equitable and accessible Los Angeles – and a key component of that process is building leadership. Through the LA-HIP Americorps program, LISC provides the necessary support for our graduates so that they are not simply learning from their organization, but actively contributing to its mission as leaders, long after the internship is over.
“I’m still learning, but I think without the foundation that LA-HIP provided through their weekly seminars and through giving me direct work experience, I wouldn’t be able to be as familiar as I am now with the whole affordable housing process.”
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