Samuel Mistrano

SAM MISTRANO, a senior facilities project manager for the Los Angeles Unified School District, creates workforce housing for lower-income teachers and staff by leveraging district-owned land to form public-private partnerships. He develops and moves project concepts through internal bureaucratic and political approvals, and then negotiates the land-use, development and financial deals. To date, he has created four housing deals for 300 units, the ground leases which will provide nearly $20 million in new revenue for LAUSD.

Before joining LAUSD, Mistrano was on the executive management team for the Jamboree Housing Corporation, a statewide non-profit developer of affordable housing with a portfolio of 41 rehabbed or newly built developments. He served as director of its Housing with Heart program. Prior to that, Mistrano was deputy executive director of the Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing, where he helped craft state legislation, reform the tax credit allocation system and promote joint development between affordable housing and public schools. During this time, he also served on the board of directors for Housing California.

Mistrano has also served as executive director of the Human Services Alliance, which helps create social service policy at the regional and state level by organizing hundreds of non-profit agencies in Los Angeles County. For his work there, he was named one of the 25 most effective "young" executive directors in the nation by The Chronicle of Philanthropy and one of L.A.'s most effective advocates by L.A. Weekly.

Mistrano started his career at the American Civil Liberties Union's national legislative office in Washington D.C., and then transferred to Los Angeles to be the ACLU's legislative director in Southern California.

An adjunct associate professor at the USC School of Social Work, Mistrano teaches the required public policy course to MSW candidates. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Minnesota and is a licensed member of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Bar Associations. He graduated from Penn State.