WAHN LOS ANGELES
OUR MISSION
The Women’s Affordable Housing Network of Los Angeles (WAHN Los Angeles) is an organization committed to the empowerment and development of women who work in affordable housing through partnership, networking, advocacy, and community engagement. It is our goal to bring women together to build a stronger affordable housing industry for Los Angeles.
OUR VISION
We envision Los Angeles as a place where confident women influence and foster stable communities
through affordable housing.
Cricket Cleary
Cricket Cleary, is a Senior Associate on the Development team at Lincoln Avenue Capital, a national mission driven affordable housing developer based in Santa Monica. She oversees all phases of the development cycle including entitlements, design, financing, construction and stabilization. During her three years in the affordable housing industry, she has contributed to the new construction of over 900 units totaling $428 million in total development costs and has closed over $320 million of debt and equity transactions. Cricket graduated with a bachelor’s degree from University of California Santa Barbara.
Mieke Holkeboer
Mieke Holkeboer is a Vice President and Senior Underwriter in the Affordable Housing Group at Western Alliance Bank. Based in Los Angeles, Holkeboer has been a public finance professional for nearly 20 years, beginning her career in Chicago as a senior municipal bond analyst for Nuveen Investments. At Nuveen, she focused primarily on high yield credits in the charter school, higher education and land-backed sectors. Prior to joining Western Alliance Bank, Ms. Holkeboer worked for Kayne Saybrook Municipal Opportunity Fund as a senior research analyst for a concentrated strategy invested in distressed municipal credits. She joined the Bank’s Public and Nonprofit Finance Group in 2015 and is currently a senior underwriter in the Bank’s Affordable Housing Group. Ms. Holkeboer served for many years on the Women in Public Finance Los Angeles Chapter Board, most recently as President from 2019 through 2022. Holkeboer earned her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College and holds graduate degrees from Yale University, the University of Cape Town, and the University of Chicago.
Karen Esparza
Mrs. Esparza is Vice President responsible for BLDG Partners LLC property management portfolio in operationalizing the firm’s strategic plan to ensure the organization meets and exceeds its objective goals. From A+ to B and C projects, conventional, commercial mixed-use development, mixed income and affordable housing, she has been responsible for numerous activities including portfolio operations, asset preservation, revenue management, finance, development, marketing, due diligence, asset rehabilitation/repositioning, acquisition and resyndication activities with an emphasis on strategic direction, process, and increased efficiency through data analysis.
Holding nearly two decades of real estate experience, Mrs. Esparza’s previous professional history includes leadership positions with notable Multifamily-Oriented organizations as Sequoia Equities and Owner/Developer Highridge Costa, LLC. In her tenure, she has contributed to the development and oversight of more than 10,000 multifamily residential units yielding more than $1B of real estate investment throughout the nation. With her experience garnered in the affordable sector, Mrs. Esparza has concrete understanding of complicated local, city, state and federal agencies regulatory agreements and nuances therein, year-15 disposition issues and LIHTC property compliance testing.
She received an Executive Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics, serving on several industry boards; to include Institute of Real Estate Management IREM- 2023 Affordable Housing Advisory Council and Marketing/Resident Services Advisory Boards. Mrs. Esparza is a member of the National Association of Home Builders, Institute of Real Estate Management, The National Affordable Housing Management Association, a CPM candidate while holding active NPCC, ARM ®, HCCP, SHCM designations and real estate license in the State of California.
Rose Eaton
With over 28 years of experience, Rose has been responsible for due diligence, development, acquisition, credit analysis, management, workout, and disposition of more than $1.5 billion of assets for not-for-profit, public, and private companies. Rose is the Chief Credit Officer for both the Fallbrook Loan Fund and for Fallbrook Multifamily Investments, tax credit investments made on behalf of Fallbrook’s clients. She began her career in real estate focusing on commercial real estate lending and asset management. Throughout the last 20 years, Rose’s career has focused on affordable housing, both state and federal low-income housing tax credits and historic tax credits. She has developed investment, asset management, loan servicing, credit risk and disposition protocols for several firms. During her time in private law practice she represented both purchasers and sellers through all facets of real estate acquisition, financing, development, and disposition. Rose graduated from Montana State University with a Bachelor of Science in Communication and Gonzaga University School of Law with a Juris Doctorate.
OUR COMMITTEES
Stay-tuned!
We’ll be adding new seats on our Committees coming 2023!
The SPONSORSHIP COMMITTEE’S responsibility is to coordinate the receipt of sponsors and their donations. Committee members communicate with potential and existing sponsors to answer any questions and keep track of responsibilities to those sponsors. Committee members work with the Communications Committee to get information from sponsors in order to highlight them in newsletters and on social media. Committee members are also responsible for keeping track of the amount of funds coming in from sponsors and track the events and social media posts for each Sponsor.
The MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE’S purpose is to recruit new members who have an active role in the affordable housing industry, develop networking, volunteerism, and community engagement opportunities for members, and promote the value of membership through professional and personal development activities. The Membership Committee takes great pleasure in helping to empower women working in all aspects of affordable housing in the city of Los Angeles.