Sarah Gerecke is a nonresident fellow in the Housing Finance Policy Center and principal at SSG Community Solutions, with four decades of experience designing program and policy responses to complex affordable housing and community development challenges. An adjunct professor of urban planning for New York University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, she teaches graduate law and policy seminars on public management, land use, housing, and community development in New York City.

From 2011–2019, Gerecke was deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Housing Counseling at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, where her responsibilities included programs to increase access to affordable, quality housing and mortgages, and initiatives to help families improve their financial and housing conditions.

From 2009 to 2011, Gerecke was executive director of New York University’s Furman Center, a leading academic research center. From 2001 until 2009, Gerecke was chief executive officer of Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City, where she supervised lending, education, and real estate programs that assisted over 10,000 city residents each year. She has held leadership positions for a homeless housing provider in Westchester County, NY, and appointed positions in New York City government under Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins with responsibilities for planning and implementation of major revitalization projects in Harlem, the South Bronx, and central Brooklyn.

She is a member of the Supreme Court bar, the New York State bar, and a graduate of Harvard Law School and Princeton University.