A Few Minutes With Kim Duran

Kim Duran, Senior Project Manager, Wakeland Housing and Development Corp.

Some 20 years ago, when Kim Duran took LISC’s Housing Development Training Institute program, the sessions were held in a Franciscan monastery in San Ramon, in the East Bay.

“We walked around the campus with the monks, who all wore the brown robes, with their heads shaved and everything,” she recalls. “That was a lesson for all of us, that everyone needs housing.”

Now Senior Project Manager for San Diego-based Wakeland Housing, Kim has held a number of high-level positions in development, asset management and financing.

During her career, she has secured $250 million in financing for affordable housing, completed 18 developments on-time and on-budget, and overseen asset management for 38 properties with over 2,300 units.

Currently, she oversees two Wakeland affordable housing developments in City Heights, in partnership with Price Philanthropies. The 60-unit and 75-unit projects are slated for completion by summer 2022. Groundbreaking is expected early next year.

As an undergrad at UC San Diego (Urban Studies and Planning), she interned at SANDAG and was advised to earn a graduate degree, which she promptly did, earning a master’s (City and Regional Planning) from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

These days, she’s happy to be working from home, the better to give Buffy, a Spaniel mix and her pet rescue dog, a daily regime of four walks around the block.

*Interview Condensed for length and clarity

What led you to get into affordable housing?

After moving back to San Diego, I told everybody I knew, “Look, I need a job.” As it turned out, my dad told me that LISC’s AmeriCorps program was looking for someone to be placed with MAAC Project, which was then managed by Richard Juarez, who became my boss and mentor. That’s how it started and I’ve been in this industry for 20 years now.

What do you like most about what you do?

I like that we provide what I regard as a lasting foundation for families and individuals. I strongly believe that housing is a basic right. And giving someone a decent, affordable place to live is what turns that right into their new reality.

How has working from home impacted your day-to-day tasks?

Really, not at all, because in this industry, if you have a cell phone and a laptop, you do can just about anything from anywhere. Plus, with Zoom so prevalent, I’ve had many more “face-to-face” meetings than I ever did when we were able to get together in person.

What have you learned in your 20 years in the field?

Patience, which doesn’t come naturally to me. When I first started at MAAC, Richard told me that it usually takes about 20 years to make a positive difference in the neighborhoods we served. Sometimes, it does take that long, but there are other projects where change happens much more quickly – especially when you put enough positive energy and vision into the final product.

How do you measure the success of a project?

There are so many ways, starting with how many people get served. But I’d prefer to measure the more intangible ways, such as seeing a neighborhood turn itself around. When we start and then finish a project down the street, suddenly it’s like everyone takes a bit more pride in their own living space. That’s how I like to measure our success.