Ben Metcalf

Ben Metcalf has served as managing director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley since 2020, leading the expansion and deepening of the Terner Center’s research portfolio and policy analysis work. In addition, he holds an appointment as associate research professor with the Department of City & Regional Planning and serves as practice director for the Abbey Master of Real Estate Development + Design. He is also the chief executive officer of Terner Labs, a nonprofit organization formed in 2021 to advance the applied innovation work of the Terner Center.

In 2015, Governor Jerry Brown appointed Metcalf to lead California’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), a role he held until 2019. During his tenure there, he played an instrumental role in the passage and implementation of the 2017 Housing Package and oversaw the department during a period of significant expansion of the state’s financial and regulatory reach into housing and land use matters. In addition, he served on the board of directors of the California Housing Partnership Corporation, the California Housing Finance Agency, and he was the founding chair of the State of California’s Homelessness Coordinating and Finance Council.

Prior to joining HCD, Metcalf worked in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., including as an appointee of President Obama in the role of deputy assistant secretary overseeing HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing Programs. His responsibilities included oversight of the Federal Housing Administration multifamily guaranteed loan portfolio and a subsidized affordable housing portfolio representing 30,000 multifamily properties across the U.S. As senior advisor to the FHA Commissioner on multifamily housing, he developed key administration priorities related to energy efficiency; housing for the elderly, disabled, and formerly homeless; and comprehensive neighborhood revitalization.

Before that, he developed mixed-income and mixed-use communities with California-based BRIDGE Housing Corporation. He had day-to-day responsibility for a portfolio of major projects from initial due diligence and site acquisition through approvals, design, and construction, bringing forward ~$125 million in development activity and played key roles in successfully securing environmental and land use approvals for four major Bay Area land opportunities representing ~$1.5 billion of new development.

Ben holds a Master in Public Policy and Urban Planning from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College and was an inaugural Fellow at the Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence at the University of Pennsylvania.