BAHFA taps housing industry veterans as strategic advisors

The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) has announced the addition of Lydia Tan and Carol Galante as advisors to help guide BAHFA through its strategic planning process.

Tan has deep roots as an affordable housing developer, serving for nearly 20 years at BRIDGE Housing, including as Executive Vice President, and subsequently launching Related California’s San Francisco office, serving as its first Director of Northern California Operations. 

She has been directly involved in the creation or preservation of more than 10,000 homes in affordable and mixed-income communities. Galante is a national housing leader and the founder of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. 

She previously served as Assistant Secretary for Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Multifamily Housing Programs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Prior to that Galante served as President and CEO of BRIDGE Housing.

Tan and Galante will help guide BAHFA’s overall efforts during this critical period of the agency’s development as it regroups after the removal of Regional Measure 4 from the November 2024 ballot. BAHFA and Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) leaders have preliminarily identified 2028 as the next potential date for a new regional housing funding measure.

The advisor team will support BAHFA’s strategic planning process, including program design and evaluation, stakeholder engagement and political strategy. They will also provide expertise to deepen current lending programs and develop new ones, and leverage their housing finance and real estate development knowledge to strengthen BAHFA, MTC and ABAG’s work. Tan and Galante will work with BAHFA for approximately 18 months.

Established in 2019 as the state’s pioneering regional housing entity, BAHFA focuses on large-scale solutions for affordable housing production, preservation and tenant protections. It is jointly governed by the BAHFA Board, which is composed of the same members as the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the Association of Bay Area Governments. Learn more on the BAHFA webpage.