Our Board

The Public Housing Preservation Trust is governed by an experienced and dedicated Board of Trustees that includes NYCHA residents.

Board Members

The New York City Public Housing Preservation Trust is governed by a 9-member Board of Trustees, which includes four members that are NYCHA residents, one member that represents NYCHA workers, the CEO and CFO of NYCHA, the New York City Deputy Mayor of Housing, Economic Development and Workforce, and an at-large member.

The Trust Board

Lisa Bova Hiatt

Lisa Bova-Hiatt

NYCHA CEO & Trust Board Chair
Appointed: June 15, 2022
Appointed by: NYCHA, Ex Officio

Lisa Bova-Hiatt was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the New York City Housing Authority by Mayor Eric Adams on July 6, 2023. She served as the Interim CEO of the Authority since September 2022.

Lisa has more than 25 years of experience in the public sector. She joined NYCHA in February 2020 as General Counsel, where she led the Authority's Law Department and was involved with all NYCHA executive matters including compliance with the HUD Agreement, NYCHA’s Transformation and Implementation Plans, as well as operations and administration. She was previously General Counsel of the City University Construction Fund and Executive University Counsel of the City University of New York (CUNY). Prior to CUNY, Lisa served as Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery (GOSR), where she played an integral role in helping the agency carry out the reconstruction of over 12,000 homes and hundreds of infrastructure projects.

Lisa previously spent 19 years in various roles at the New York City Law Department, including as the Deputy Chief of the Tax and Bankruptcy Litigation Division, where she specialized in the acquisition of property by eminent domain, in rem tax foreclosures, and real estate titles.

Karen Blondel

President, Red Hook West Houses Tenant Association
Term: 3 years, July 6, 2023 — July 5, 2026
Appointed by: NYCHA

  • Karen Blondel is an award-winning climate activist and leader of the Red Hook West Houses Residents Association. Karen has been a resident of Red Hook Houses since 1982 and has worked tirelessly to build community and organize residents, promote resiliency and decarbonization, and pursue innovative approaches to improve public housing through the creation of the Trust. She was a Harvard Loeb fellow, declared one of New York City’s “Climate Heroes” by the Human Impacts Institute and New York City Department of Transportation, and most recently, in 2023, received the David Prize, an award recognizing leaders for extraordinary work to improve the lives of New Yorkers.

Pamela Campbell

Labor Representative
Term: 3 years, July 6, 2023 — July 5, 2026
Appointed by: New York City Mayor

  • Pamela Campbell dedicated her career to serving public housing residents, spending 27 years working at NYCHA. Pamela started as a seasonal employee and steadily advanced to become an Assistant Superintendent for Baisley Houses. Her experience spans developments in Brooklyn and Queens and she brings a wealth of operational knowledge to the Trust’s Board of Trustees. A member of Teamsters Local 237, she also worked at Seth Low Houses and Howard Houses in Brooklyn, as well as Queensbridge Houses in Queens.

Baaba Halm

Senior Vice Presidents of Programs, Solutions, Enterprise Community Partners
Term: 1 year, July 5, 2024 — July 4, 2025
Appointed by: NYCHA

  • Baaba Halm is the New York market leader for Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit on a mission to make home and community places of pride, power and belonging, and platforms for resilience and upward mobility for all. Baaba has two decades of experience in housing, community development, and policy, as well as a deep commitment to racial equity. She most recently served as the executive deputy commissioner and chief diversity officer at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Over Baaba’s career, she has been deeply involved with housing policy at all levels of government. Baaba also brings rich experience from her work in the nonprofit sector at Covenant House New Jersey and Housing Works, where she focused on issues such as homelessness and housing discrimination.

Annika Lescott-Martinez

NYCHA’s Chief Financial Officer
Appointed: June 30, 2023
Appointed by: NYCHA, Ex Officio

  • Annika Lescott-Martinez was appointed Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President of Finance at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) in February 2020. In this capacity, Ms. Lescott-Martinez leads the financial planning and analysis, accounting, payroll, risk management, and investment activities of the Authority. She is also responsible for fiscal policy and financial performance of the Authority including the $4 billion operating budget, $1 billion investment portfolio, and the issuance of the annual financial statements for NYCHA and its subsidiaries.

    Prior to joining NYCHA, Ms. Lescott-Martinez was a Presidential Management Fellow in the Executive Office of the President of the United States, where she worked on non-partisan housing policy analysis and the President's Budget under the Obama and Trump administrations. Ms. Lescott-Martinez provided strategic oversight on the more than $78 billion budget of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, crafted national housing policy reforms, reviewed national public housing regulatory changes, and implemented landmark legislation to streamline workforce development programs. She also worked at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, an innovative community development financing institution where she facilitated reinvestment in low-income communities across the five boroughs.

Barbara McFadden

President of Nostrand Tenant Association, Vice Chair of NYCHA’s Citywide Council of Presidents

Term: 3 year, July 5, 2024 — July 5, 2027
Appointed by: New York City Mayor

  • Barbara McFadden has dedicated her time after retirement to serving her NYCHA community as vice chair of the NYCHA Citywide Council of Presidents, the district chair for Brooklyn South, and as the President for her own development, Nostrand Houses in Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn. She is an advocate for change, spearheading various initiatives to drive improvements across public housing communities.

    She previously worked at the New York City Department of Education as a substitute teacher and volunteered for the NYCHA youth leadership councils from 2017 to 2019. She was part of the Public Housing Preservation Trust voting procedures working group in fall 2022.

Maria Torres-Springer

First Deputy Mayor for New York City
Appointed: July 3, 2023
Appointed by: New York City Mayor, Ex Officio

  • Maria Torres-Springer is the New York City First Deputy Mayor. In this role, she will assume oversight of the first deputy mayor portfolio and provide strategic direction and operational and budgetary oversight for the City of New York. She will continue to manage her housing and economic development portfolio given its significance to the administration’s agenda.    

    She was previously the NYC Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce, charged with spearheading the administration’s efforts to strengthen and diversify its economy, advancing Mayor Adams’ moonshot goal of creating 500,000 new homes for New Yorkers by 2032, preserving and improving NYCHA, bolstering small business, connecting New Yorkers to family-sustaining jobs, and expanding access to arts and culture.

    Additionally, she previously served as vice president of U.S. programs at the Ford Foundation, where she oversaw the foundation’s domestic grantmaking and made historic investments in support of racial equity, workers’ rights, voting rights, and arts and culture. Maria has a long track record of public service in New York City, having led three city agencies including the Department of Small Business Services, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation.