By Fern Gillespie
When Jamal Clayton Robinson was appointed Executive Director of community development nonprofit IMPACCT Brooklyn, it was due to the impact that he had made in his career spanning community development and real estate as a JPMorgan Chase executive to his leadership role as a captain at West Point.
For 62 years, IMPACCT Brooklyn has served as a community development nonprofit with a mission to eradicate housing insecurity. Its mission is to strengthen neighborhoods through racial justice, housing, community development and economic opportunity. IMPACCT Brooklyn advocates for Bedford Stuyvesant, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Prospect Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens.
Robinson’s interest in affordable housing and community development began while working at JPMorgan Chase in Community Development Banking and
Commercial Real Estate Development. Pratt Area Community Council was a client. “I learned the affordable housing and community development spaces when I worked on an affordable housing deal for the Pratt Area Community Council,” Robinson told Our Time Press.
Last September, he saw the impact of that deal as Executive Director of IMPACCT. “I did the Ribbon cutting for 778 Myrtle,” he said. “It was the very deal that I was working on at JPMorgan Chase for Pratt Area Community Council. It was a complete full circle moment.”
“It’s allowing folks to have the opportunity to live somewhere and have a roof over their heads. At 778 Myrtle it’s a mix of 60 affordable and supportive housing apartments. At a range of different affordability levels,” he said. “That fact that it is supportive housing within the affordable housing ecosystem means that much more. We have our social services team there helping residents get back on their feet. There are formerly homeless individuals as well. To see people have an opportunity and the right to housing to live is everything to me”
What makes IMPACCT Brooklyn unique as a community development corporation is the nonprofit has the staff to build affordable housing as a developer. It has a social services team that can also occupy and work in that building. Other services include social services, community organizing, tenants’ rights, economic development, financial literacy, foreclosure prevention, energy retrofits for homeowners, small business development, housing lottery training, and home ownership counseling.
“With the home ownership services, we are providing not only financial literacy in general but also financial literacy for home ownership,” he said. “The First Time Home Buyer Program is headed by Pat Julien, who has been with the organization for over 20 years. She has a knowledge and depth in helping folks in Central Brooklyn.”
“Housing affordability is such a problem and an issue for everyone,” he explained. “But, specifically, we’ve lost a lot of Black residents in Central Brooklyn. In 2010 it was 77 percent. Now, we are at about 41 percent. The demographics are changing. We want to help keep our residents from leaving Brooklyn.”
The motto for IMPACCT Brooklyn is Build, Restore and Preserve. “In this moment in time, we had to have a focused mission moving forward,” he said. “We came up with a strategic plan on a mission based on what IMPACCT has done and what it can do on an excellent level. That is to build, restore and preserve quality housing and educational services to keep our residents rooted in Brooklyn.”
Excellence was a word nurtured by his parents. Robinson grew up on the East Side of Cleveland. “It was a drug environment,” he recalled. “Back in the late 80s and early 90s, a drug epidemic was going on in inner cities. I knew something was wrong. I knew that wasn’t normal.”
“My parent were very clear. They said: ‘We can’t afford college. You have to be excellent academically and physically to get a scholarship to go off to school,’” he recalled. “I thought it was a harsh thing to say to an 11 year-old. But, I’m glad they did.”
In high school, he wanted to be a leader and looked at careers and colleges with leadership training. He sought out West Point. “My guidance counselor told me that inner city kids don’t go to West Point. That was deeply profound and did something to me,” he said. “I decided that’s where I wanted to go.”
No one in this family had served in the military. As a West Point cadet, he discovered academic and leadership capabilities. “It was a moment of a lifetime that shifted my perspectives,” he said. “It was grit, ambition and prayers. West Point taught me how to be a leader with character and lead with integrity.”
After graduating from West Point, he served in the Army. Later returning to West Point as a captain. He served as a Company Commander, a top management position working with cadets, officers and staff. While working at JPMorgan Chase, he returned to college earning two master degrees at NYU—a Master of Public Administration in Community Economic Development and Masters in Real Estate Development/Finance.
Real Estate is part of Robinson’s family legacy. His grandfather moved from Alabama to Cleveland and was a real estate investor in the 1940s. “He was one of the first owners in the neighborhood to use home ownership and he rented to other folks in the community,” he said. “I learned early on that you can make a social and economic benefit from real estate.”
“I wanted to go to IMPACCT Brooklyn so I could serve this community.
But, I could serve in a way that I could bring my whole self, my leadership capabilities, my community development and finance background,” he explained. “That I had the audacity to believe that I could work with individuals at legacy organization like IMPACCT to affect change. For me that’s not work. It’s showing up who I am.”
For more information visit: www.impacctbrooklyn.org