Dakota Billops-Breaux, M.S. candidate in Urban Placemaking and Management (UPM); Jen Hung, M.S. candidate in Sustainable Environmental Systems (SES) and an Advanced Certificate in Historic Preservation (HP); and Wayne Mok, M.S. candidate in Urban and Community Planning (UCP), are among the 2025-2026 Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD) Community Development Graduate Fellowship cohort.
The ANHD is a member organization of community groups across New York City. They use research, advocacy, and grassroots organizing to support their members in their efforts to build equity and justice in their neighborhoods and throughout the city.
Now in its 14th year, the Community Development Fellowship program selects graduate students pursuing degrees in community planning and development whom they determine to be “emerging community development leaders,” and pairs them with member organizations. Over the course of 10 months, the fellows will work with their partner organizations on a meaningful community development project in New York City. The fellowship provides students with additional training beyond what they have received in their academic programs, as well as support while building out the capacity of the member organizations and the movement as a whole.
Dakota Billops-Breaux is working with Habitat for Humanity NYC and Westchester. During her fellowship, her primary focus will be on developing and managing advisory committees that “advise Habitat on how to be good partners with the communities in which they are building.” Dakota has already conducted outreach that has ranged from community board and city government ULURP hearings, to conversations with local leaders over a shared meal. In addition, Dakota hopes to “leave them with a toolkit for continuing to build out a community engagement strategy” that they can use in the years to come. “I’m incredibly excited about this opportunity,” she said, “because of the leadership team’s intention around the creation of permanently affordable homes that serve the specific needs of New York City and Westchester County, including making an effort to understand what these needs are and how they differ between localities.”
Jen Hung is working with the Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC) as part of the Affordable Housing Development team. In her role, Jen supports a portfolio of affordable housing projects in various stages of development, assisting with applications, underwriting, financing processes, and coordination with architects and vendors. “The fellowship is providing me broad exposure to the full housing development process, across rehabilitation, preservation, supportive housing, and new construction, as well as exploring financing structures for projects which include energy-efficiency measures,” she said. Jen will also help implement FAC’s enterprise capital campaign, supporting housing for up to 5,000 people.
Wayne Mok is working with Rise Now Inc., focusing on resource development and organizational compliance. “A lot of what I am doing is browsing for various funding opportunities, writing grant applications, as well as completing compliance reporting as required by law for the federal, city, and state governments,” he said. “I am learning a lot, and it will be very useful for me in the future if/when I choose to start and run my own organization.” Rise Now Inc.’s current primary goal is to establish a Federal People’s Credit Union, which will “better facilitate the work we do in helping members of marginalized communities navigate and access financial tools and social services.”