Jessica Williams

Jessica Williams is an Associate Director for Technical Assistance at the Center for Community Progress. Grounding community engagement and racial equity in her work, Williams is passionate about helping local leaders and communities to find solutions that address systemic vacancy.

Williams draws from her wide range of experience in urban planning, economic and community development, outreach coordination, and strategic organizational planning to develop program and policy recommendations that consider the impact that future development in cities has on neighborhood conditions. Williams also has extensive experience with building relationships, bringing diverse groups together, and facilitating complex conversations to identify solutions to shared challenges. In her role at Community Progress, Williams delivers technical expertise to local and state stakeholders through stakeholder engagement, policy, and data analysis, and developing recommendations that address vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties.

Prior to joining Community Progress, Williams worked as a community planner in the public and private sectors where she led several internal racial equity initiatives, including a blog series, working group, and engagement efforts for a local racial equity action plan.

Williams received her bachelor’s from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of New Orleans. She is based in Washington, DC.