BIOGRAPHY – DEBORAH A. DELONG
Deborah DeLong continues a
30+-year career in the housing as the Director of Housing for Westchester
County Department of Planning. In this role, Ms. DeLong oversees the County’s
housing development programs, which provides millions of dollars for land
acquisition, infrastructure improvements and construction funding. She began
this position, August 1, 2005.
Prior to accepting her Westchester County
position, in 2004 and early 2005, Ms. DeLong worked in Dutchess County for a
new coalition of local governments, business people, nonprofit housing agencies
and others concerned with the lack of workforce housing in the County. Although
a new entity, in its first year of existence, the Dutchess County Workforce
Housing Coalition, which Ms. DeLong directed, emerged as a vital resource and
advocate for affordable housing.
Ms. DeLong arrived in the lower Hudson
Valley after spending two years as the
Homeownership Program Coordinator for the City of Anaheim, CA, where she
leveraged over $3 million in State and private funds to assist first time
homebuyers, developed and implemented homebuyer education seminars and
counseling programs. Previously, she also acted as a Project Coordinator for
Co-op Initiatives in Hartford, CT
to develop multifamily rental and homeownership housing.
Ms. DeLong, the former Deborah Bazewicz, is
married to Dr. Dennis R. DeLong who has had a long academic career in teaching
and administration, most recently at Caldwell
College in NJ as Dean of the Center for Graduate
and Continuing Studies. Currently, he is operating Going Places Consulting,
a consulting firm, begun by the couple in 2003, providing advice and grant
writing to municipalities and not-for-profit organizations as well as other
services.
Ms. DeLong was born, raised and educated through the first
two years of college in the Rice
Lake area of Northwestern Wisconsin
(North of Eau Clare). She came to NYS originally to accept a position with the
NYS Rural Housing Coalition – an organization with which she still is
affiliated as a member on the Board of Directors. .In addition to an AAS in
Accounting, earned in Wisconsin, Ms.
DeLong earned a BS in Business Administration from SUNY Empire State College and has completed
graduate work in computer information systems at Central
Connecticut State
University and in public administration at Marist
College. Ms.and Dr. DeLong share three grown
children, Dr. Robert DeLong, Andrea Morgan and Tami Loya and six grandchildren.
The families reside in Missouri, Virginia and near Albany.
In addition to her most recent in Dutchess and
Westchester Counties and earlier in California and Connecticut, Ms. DeLong also
has extensive statewide experience in NYS, including the provision of program
research and policy analysis for the New York State Division of Housing and
Community Renewal for 12 years and, five years of technical assistance to
housing nonprofits for the NYS Rural Housing Coalition. Even earlier in her
career, she gained experience in housing management, housing development and
homebuyer/financial counseling for a regional nonprofit community development
agency in Wisconsin.
In summary, Ms. DeLong more than 30 years of
experience in the housing and community development fields including work with
nonprofit housing agencies at the local, regional and state levels as well as
for both local and state governments. Her experience includes leveraging and
utilization of government housing programs with private and local funding to
create housing opportunities and improve communities.