Managing Director, Housing Solutions

Overview

DignityMoves seeks an experienced development, planning, building, or construction professional to reimagine innovative ways to build and deliver interim housing that is fast, cost-effective, and scalable. DignityMoves identifies unused or under-utilized properties and manages their transformation into communities that quickly house those who are homeless and unsheltered. The Managing Director, Housing Solutions will collaborate and develop solutions with municipal officials, private landowners, nonprofits, architects, and workers and contractors from different construction trades and disciplines. Desired experience includes building or construction of temporary shelters after disasters or for military encampments and mobile command centers, field hospitals, or temporary facilities for Olympic and sports villages, concerts, festivals, etc.

BACKGROUND

DignityMoves is pioneering Interim Supportive Housing (ISH) to address California’s unsheltered homelessness crisis. Its innovative model uses temporarily vacant land, relocatable prefabricated housing units, and emergency building codes to build communities quickly, cost-effectively, and at scale. By harnessing public-private partnerships and tapping private capital, land, and creative funding strategies, DignityMoves empowers municipalities to move toward functional zero unsheltered homelessness. The organization’s DignityNOW model challenges cities to provide enough placements for everyone living unsheltered.

Headquartered in San Francisco, DignityMoves partners with municipal and private stakeholders to rapidly deliver interim housing and supportive services. Leveraging “Shelter Crisis” declarations—under which municipalities can waive regulatory barriers—DignityMoves guides governments in deploying emergency authority to accelerate housing solutions. This approach enables communities to be built for $50,000 per unit in just months. Its advocacy has helped shape policy, including co-sponsoring California’s Interim Housing Act (SB 1395).

DignityMoves currently works with cities across the state, with a focus on the Bay Area, San Diego, and Los Angeles. After launching projects in San Francisco and Santa Barbara in 2022, momentum surged statewide. As of August 2025, its portfolio includes 732 beds across 622 units in ten sites, with another 696 beds / 599 units in ten additional sites in development.

To meet surging demand, DignityMoves is scaling organizational capacity and experimenting with new building technologies such as 3D printing, sustainable materials, and innovative foundations. The relocatable nature of the units requires minimizing site-specific costs when units are moved.

With a total program budget over $60M and an operating budget of $5M, DignityMoves has a staff of 12. Reporting to the Co-Founder and Chief Real Estate Officer, the Managing Director, Housing Solutions (MDHS) oversees four direct reports (VP Real Estate Development, VP Design Innovation, VP Construction & Project Manager, and Associate Project Manager) and collaborates with partners and vendors. This role works closely with the business development team responsible for bringing in new projects.

THE POSITION

This position will be a fascinating adventure for someone who has felt constrained by the “normal” way of building, hamstrung by red tape and multi-year processes. The MDHS provides strategic leadership, oversight, project execution, and operational management for DignityMoves’ end‑to‑end handoff to client and operator. The MDHS and their team are responsible for managing and delivering multiple projects simultaneously, with unprecedented timelines for delivery. The MDHS will have a dealmaker’s sensibility and the tenacity and foresight to anticipate issues, cost overruns, and any red flags that delay opening.

Priorities in the first year will be to :

• Create a dashboard / tracking system for instant visibility over numerous projects for seeing budgets, timelines, and flagging issues
• Create a system to accurately project true project budgets
• Conduct a project recap assessment of lessons learned
• Identify the major cost drivers and develop alternative solutions
• Build on the analysis already completed by the team
• Collaborate with the Chief Real Estate Officer in identifying the most promising innovative opportunities
• Manage the team of project managers to ensure they are high performing, working with urgency, and pushing the envelope on speed and cost
• Try new approaches – experimenting, risking new strategies while ensuring successfully delivery

Key KPIs owned by the MDHS include :

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY

TRANSACTIONS & ENTITLEMENTS

DATA & OPERATIONAL CONTROLS

EXTERNAL PARTNERSHIPS / RELATIONS

IDEAL EXPERIENCE & CHARACTERISTICS

The Managing Director, Housing Solutions will be an individual with sound judgment, a bias for action, and resourcefulness to find creative solutions as situations arise. The MDHS will also have the heart of someone who deeply understands the lives of people who will benefit from interim housing, with a commitment to equity, accessibility, and trauma-informed design. A combination of the following will be considered :

COMPENSATION & WORK CONDITIONS

The salary range for this position is $220,000 - $250,000, including comprehensive benefits. Final compensation range based on experience, market, and scope. This is a hybrid role with regular site / partner visits and occasional evening public meetings; the MDHS must be able to access active construction sites and comply with safety requirements.

DignityMoves is an equal opportunity employer and strongly encourages applications from candidates who reflect the communities we serve.

Seniority level

Employment type

Job function

Industries

We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.

#J-18808-Ljbffr