Laurie Cannady Udit Selected to be Los Angeles Field Office Director

Photo: Laurie Cannady Udit.

I am pleased to announce the selection of Laurie Cannady Udit to serve as the Los Angeles Area Field Office Director. Though new to the Department, Laurie is no stranger to place-based housing and community development work. She has more than 10 years of leadership, strategic planning, policy development and experience initiating and strengthening strategic alliances with key community stakeholders. Laurie has also provided programmatic and fiscal oversight of a federal grant portfolio supporting service and volunteering through AmeriCorps VISTA and Senior Corps for over 15 years.

Most recently, she partnered with HUD's designated Promise Zone in Los Angeles and with San Diego's EnVision Center. Previously, she served as the Deputy Regional Administrator for the Corporation for National and Community Service's West Region. Laurie has also served in USDA's Summer Food Service Program and in 2001, earned a Master of Public Policy degree from UCLA's School of Public Policy and Social Research. In 1997, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Planning, Public Policy and Management from the University of Oregon.

Laurie joins the senior leadership team in Pacific Region at a time of great challenges and opportunities. As residents in the Los Angeles area and Southern California grapple with an acute homelessness and housing affordability crisis, it is compounded by the deleterious public health, social, and economic impacts resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread social unrest following the excessive use of force by police that led to George Floyd's death. Despite this, however, the region remains ripe with potential, as the Department expands investment into the area's Choice Neighborhoods, Promise Zones, Opportunity Zones, and EnVision Centers.

She began her tenure at HUD on July 6th. Please join me in welcoming her!

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