After 23 years as Founding President and CEO of WORKS, Channa Grace is stepping back from some management responsibilities for WORKS to allow her to spend more time on her own health and wellness, while continuing to support WORKS’ housing development, tenant services and community advocacy efforts in key projects. She will serve as Co-Executive Director, continuing to guide and support key development and advocacy initiatives. During her tenure as President and CEO, Channa has led WORKS to develop more than 1600 units of affordable and supportive housing for families, individuals and seniors of modest means. Under her leadership, WORKS developments have received numerous awards for excellence and WORKS been recognized as Homes Within Reach Developer of the Year in 2016 by SCANPH and as Enterprise Trailblazer of the Year by Enterprise Foundation in 2019.

A warrior at heart, Channa has been a fierce advocate for building just and equitable communities within and surrounding our housing developments themselves, recognizing that access to nutritious food, to affordable transportation and services, to safe surroundings, and to opportunities for education and economic advancement are key to the kind of holistic environment that respects every human being. In her new role, Channa will continue to guide WORKS’ strategies to achieve more for our communities and will continue to be a powerful voice in the movement for a just Los Angeles. We invite you to read a little bit about the history of WORKS here: https://www.worksusa.org/about/our-story.

We welcome Mary-Jane Waglé to the role of Co-Executive Director. Many of you are familiar with Mary-Jane’s work as our current board chair and a WORKS founding board member and of her deep experience in the field of affordable housing development. Mary-Jane returns to an active role in WORKS enriched by experience leading organizations focusing on reproductive health, advocacy and education both here and abroad in both staff and board roles.

WORKS’s senior team leaders, Jacqueline Yount as Director of Asset Management, Yoko Sugioka as Director of Development, and Francesca de la Rosa as Director of Advocacy and Community Organizing, will continue their superb leadership in their current roles.

We look forward to sustaining our work with all of you to address our City’s affordable housing crisis.
Please feel free to reach out to Mary-Jane Waglé at 917-573-2932 or at maryjane@worksusa.org or to Channa Grace at 213-220-9197 or at channa@worksusa.org

Posted on Thursday, October 14th, 2021