Sendy Soto

Biographie: Sendy Soto is the Managing Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Housing’s (DOH) newly formed Office of Community Engagement, Racial Equity and Strategic Initiatives (CERESI). As a lifelong Chicagoan, Soto is committed to undoing the harms of systemic racism and discrimination and works to ensure that affordable housing is equitably distributed throughout the City and the voices of all residents are being heard. Since joining DOH, Soto has instituted a language access plan that expanded the department's outreach through digital and print resources in six different languages, while also leading the efforts to recommit DOH to affirmatively further fair housing. Soto also co-led the Racial Equity Impact Assessment of the City's Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) to consider how the QAP could be utilized to make the LIHTC allocation process and its results more racially equitable and ensure more opportunities for community wealth building. For more than 15 years, Soto has been a trusted advisor to high-profile decisionmakers in government, private and nonprofit sectors with an emphasis on housing, immigration and health care. She has held leadership positions with the offices of Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi, then-Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Senator Richard J. Durbin, and has designed strategies and deepened impact for AMITA Health System and the YWCA Evanston/North Shore. In 2019, Soto was appointed by Governor J.B. Pritzker to serve on the Governing Commission for the Logan Square, Avondale and Hermosa Expanded Mental Health Services Program. Soto holds a B.S. in Justice Studies from Northeastern Illinois University.