Guacolda Reyes is the Chief Real Estate Development Officer at The Resurrection Project (TPR) in Chicago, IL. Growing up in Santiago, Chile, Guacolda studied social work at university before continuing to do community work and advocacy in Chile. She moved to the Pilsen area in Chicago for school, which later introduced her to a developing community organization that would later become The Resurrection Project. There, Reyes met Raul Raymundo, CEO of The Resurrection Project, who told her about the organization’s mission and plans for the Pilsen neighborhood. Reyes shared her interest in creating plans for affordable housing and teaching locals in Pilsen skills such as how to build credit and get low-interest mortgages on new houses as well as how to fix up older homes in the neighborhood at low costs.
Reyes was hired after to assist the organization with planning for community redevelopment. She worked to plan areas for development as well as meeting with local city officials to get a small housing development. Since the 1990s, Reyes served as VP of Real Estate Development at TPR, continuing to provide housing units for low-income areas as well as seniors and current college students in the area. In 2017, she accepted a position as Director of Housing Development for the Chicago Metropolitan Housing Development Corporation, and later in 2018, VP at Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation in Chicago. She currently serves as the Chief Real Estate Development Officer at The Resurrection Project since October 2020.
Interview (2022) Summary
In this interview, Guacolda shares her earliest experiences in understanding community development from her home in Santiago, Chile to applying it in a setting such as Chicago, especially in the Pilsen neighborhoods. From her background in social work and studying similar subjects in Chicago, Guacolda discusses how she noticed the conditions of families in the Pilsen area, specifically with Latino families who had historically been the majority to reside in the neighborhood of Chicago’s Lower West Side. She shares her advocacy work alongside Raul Raymunod in regard to housing and housing development and revitalization. As one of the individuals who helped get TPR off the ground and working with other stakeholders, especially the City of Chicago and the Department of Housing. Guacolda also talked about how her experience at TPR assisted her in other opportunities within the field of housing development, especially as a Latina in fields of housing, economic development, and public policy that had been historically dominated by men.
Key Terms
community development, housing, Latino, Chicago, The Resurrection Project (TPR), contractor, units, Pilsen, neighborhoods
Date: June 25, 2022
Interviewers: Research assistant Victoria Villaseñor
