Dena Xifaras

POAH

By Leah Etling on Jul 10, 2012 in People

Dena Xifaras started her professional life as an international management consultant, work that involved international travel to oversee decidedly for-profit projects. But she’s found her true calling back home in Massachusetts, where Xifaras has built a successful career in multiple roles for Boston-based Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH), a national non-profit and Yardi affordable housing client that focuses on rehabilitating properties and retaining their affordable status.

She’s worked in development and financing, restructuring troubled properties, as a systems development lead, and was recently named Vice President of POAH’s Asset Management division. Xifaras is also an attorney, and earned her law degree in night courses from Suffolk University while working full time.

Making the transition from her former life at Accenture to the nonprofit sector has been immensely rewarding for the former globetrotter.

“I didn’t even realize until I had switched how meaningful it would be to me to do something (professionally) that contributed to society,” Xifaras told us in a recent interview. A lifelong volunteer and athlete with boundless energy, her passion for improving the lives of affordable housing residents was confirmed by her very first POAH project.

The project was in Narragansett, Rhode Island, an affluent coastal town where housing is often out of reach for median-level wage earners. The work brought Xifaras in touch with some of the residents of the small affordable housing community POAH was redeveloping, among them a firefighter, and teacher and a nurses’ aide.

“These were great contributing members of society who otherwise could not live in the town where they worked,” she said. “The idea that they could live in rental housing, stay in the community, have a four minute commute, and have their children go to school with the same kids that that they were teaching and protecting struck home to me. It seemed very important and very real.”

The sense of contributing to a community was brought even closer to home with one of the most challenging projects Xifaras has tackled, which entailed the rehabilitation of a project that’s now called Temple Landing in her birthplace of New Bedford, Mass.

In disrepair after nearly 40 years of neglect, Temple Landing (formerly United Front Homes) was distressed, both in physical appearance and on its balance sheet. The 12-acre property had no through streets, effectively cutting off residents from the neighborhood. It also needed a major capital infusion to finance the improvements and get occupancy back to healthy levels.

Xifaras is credited by her company with finding “creative solutions for POAH’s distressed and older assets,” and this was a project where POAH forged such solutions both financially and during the construction phase. Cooperation between the city of New Bedford, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Mass Housing and the previous project owners, including local non-profit United Front Development Corporation, came first, followed by acquisition of the property by POAH.

The construction phase included new kitchens, bathrooms, and interior finishes throughout for every unit, as well as an exterior facelift that differentiated the look of the units, creating a feeling of a diverse neighborhood rather than a monotonous project with dead central open space. Residents now have front and back doors that open onto streets, and Temple Landing is safer and more vibrant than ever before.

“I was very proud and touched by the experience to work on something in my community,” said Xifaras, who plays basketball in a recreational league just down the street at the New Bedford Boys and Girls Club. Driving by the development and seeing its transformation and improvement means a great deal to her, as did working with local stakeholders she’d known since childhood during the financing and planning phase.

Today, she and her husband Michael make their home in the Town of Mattapoisett, a seaside community of about 6,000 just up the road from New Bedford. They have a daughter, Zoe, 2, and are expecting their second child this fall. In addition to playing basketball and soccer, Xifaras serves on the board of the Old Rochester Regional Athletic Hall of Fame and volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.

Though Xifaras never expected to make her home so close to the community in which she grew up, being surrounded by family and friends embodies her professional perspective on the importance of community.

“I couldn’t be happier with the work life balance that I’m able to achieve here. I really feel like so much of what you do in your life or are able to do all starts with having a good foundation at home.”