“You never know
who you’re going
to meet at a
Habitat work
site,” Jensen
quips.
48 South Bay Accent
everything that goes into this is just a long
and arduous process.”
EXPANDING HOUSING OPTIONS
Fast forward to 2018. Under Jensen’s leadership,
the East Bay Habitat for Humanity has
successfully merged with two other Habitat
affiliates—in 2007 with what was then
the Mount Diablo Habitat and in 2012
with the Silicon Valley affiliate. Now called
Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon
Valley, the nonprofit serves three large counties—
Alameda, Contra Costa and Santa
Clara—an area that comprises 52 cities,
unincorporated areas and a population of
4.3 million.
“We’re now one big happy family,” Jensen
says. “I learned on a steep learning curve,
and the good news is that today I know a
little bit more than almost 14 years ago.
And I’m still learning today in this everchanging
landscape.”
While Habitat for Humanity, which
launched in the U.S. in 1976, originally
worked well as a local organization, over
time it became burdened with redundancy
and a lack of efficiency, Jensen explains. By
merging with other local organizations, it
was able to cut costs, save time, build homes
faster and serve a lot more people.
“Through the mergers and partnerships,
we’ve just become far more efficient as a
business,” Jensen says. “I thought the East
Bay and the South Bay were very different
places culturally, which might make
the mergers difficult, but it really hasn’t
been an issue because the commonality
For years prior, Jensen had been working
in nonprofit health-care management with
the American Heart Association, a role that
required quite a bit of international travel.
Wanting a break from that, she started looking
for local organizations doing great work
right in her “backyard.” In 2005, when
she learned about an opening for a CEO
to head the East Bay Habitat in Oakland,
she jumped at the opportunity. Jensen was
hired, but the job was a little harder than
she anticipated.
“Like most people who volunteer with
the organization, we think we know how
Habitat works,” says Jensen, who, along
with volunteering, was also a donor. “But
once I got the job, I was humbled very
quickly. I realized I knew nothing about
affordable housing. I did know how to run a
nonprofit, but that was about it,” she recalls.
“I had a massive learning curve, and I really
had to take a couple of steps back,”she
explains. “I realized that, frankly, the easiest
thing that Habitat does is build a house.
… That’s hard, but acquiring land, the
entitlement process, the family selection,
Former President
Jimmy Carter
visited the 12-home
development being
built by Habitat for
Humanity in Oakland.
Below: Janice
Jensen visits Habitat
in Nepal.
FROM TOP: HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INTERNATIONAL/EZRA MILLSTEIN; COURTESY OF HABITAT FOR HUMANITY EBSV