Aldana Tapped To Lead Community Development Partnership

ORLEANS – Andrea Aldana doesn’t need to be told about the difficulties young professionals and families face securing housing on the Lower Cape. She lives it.

A resident of Eastham, Aldana said she has been able to set roots with her husband and 5-year-old son in the region with the help of her inlaws.

“Thankfully they had a vacation home they were able to sell to us, and that is absolutely why I am able to stay,” she said.

But beyond her personal experiences, Aldana is also vested in the region’s housing crisis on a professional level. For the past 15 years, she’s worked her way up the ranks of the Community Development Partnership, where she started as a volunteer upon first moving to the Cape. Next month, she’ll take on the position of the nonprofit’s president and CEO.

Aldana, who has been serving as CDP’s chief program officer since 2022, will become CEO on March 29. She will take over the role from longtime CEO Jay Coburn, who is retiring after 13 years helming the nonprofit.

“Jay has been my boss,” Aldana said. “He’s been the leader, of course, but he’s also been a mentor to me probably more than any mentor I’ve ever had. We’ve been working very closely together for years, especially with this last strategic planning process that we just wrapped up... he really let me co-lead that.”

A native of Miami Beach, Fla., Aldana got her first taste of New England when she moved to western Massachusetts, where her mother went to attend Smith College. Aldana later went to college in New York City, where she met her husband. 

After a few years in New York after graduation, the couple moved to Eastham in 2011.

“My husband really wanted to grow oysters here in Eastham with his brother,” she said. “That is why we moved here. But the reason I agreed to move here was because I found the CDP online. I told myself and promised myself that if I came to the Cape, that’s where I would work.”

The partnership’s work aligned with Aladana’s background in metropolitan studies, and she said she was compelled to be a part of the organization's work.

“Community development corporations, what’s so wonderful about them, is they don’t just do one thing,” she said. “They provide place-based solutions, and the work is always changing. So I was really excited to join an organization that was doing lots of different interesting things that evolve over time. And that’s really proven to be true, because I’ve been able to move into lots of different roles.”

After getting her foot in the door as a volunteer, Aldana worked as the nonprofit’s office manager. The job allowed her to work closely with CDP’s board of directors and gave her a close look at how the nonprofit operated. 

From there, Aldana began taking the lead on specific CDP programs, such as the nonprofit’s first-time homebuyers workshop and winter market. In 2017, Coburn tasked her with leading CDP’s Lower Cape Community Housing Partnership. The program works to train local officials and residents in how to advocate for housing in the region.

“That was the first time that I learned about housing policy and strategy and started really building relationships across town government,” she said of the program.

As she prepares to take the reins as CEO, Aldana said that she is inheriting an organization that has positioned itself as a leader in the Lower and Outer Cape’s efforts to create more housing. But while many towns share the same vision on the direction the region should take in support of that effort, Aldana said one of her goals moving forward is to get more residents to pull in the same direction. Affordable housing and the creation of it can be met with opposition, and that’s not a problem unique to the Cape, she said. 

“I do think there is a lot of opportunity, but we need to get people aligned around not just where they don’t want housing, but where we do want housing,” she added.

Aldana’s work with the CDP doesn’t come with nine to five hours, she said, noting that she often finds herself generating ideas at night at home. But when she does break away from her work, you can often find her in her garden or more likely spending time with her son.

“I’m mostly just chasing him, but he’s actually a great community connector because I get to meet all the parents of his friends and hear about their struggles and what it’s like for them surviving on the Lower and Outer Cape,” she said.