Surmick a jack of all trades and master of one: affordable housing

Community Connections: Rachael, how would you describe your role with the community development team?

Surmick: I am the community development advisor covering Nebraska, where I’m a jack of all trades when it comes to community development. I’m the master of one trade when it comes to the seven-state District: affordable housing.

As an advisor, I connect, convene, facilitate, and focus on qualitative research to help increase access to credit and economic opportunity for lower income communities.

I am one of four community development advisors at the Kansas City Fed. Together, our work serves practitioners, government, community development bankers, Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) officers, philanthropy, and more.

Community Connections: You’re relatively new to the Midwest, right?

Surmick: Right. I moved to Nebraska in 2018. I’m a Pennsylvanian who followed her heart, followed a boy who became my husband across the country, and somehow made it to the heartland.

I grew up about an hour outside of Philadelphia. If you play Monopoly, you may have heard of my hometown: Reading, Pennsylvania. It’s pronounced redd-ing and appears on the Monopoly board as the Reading Railroad.

I stayed in Pennsylvania for college. My undergraduate degree in history is from Gettysburg College and I earned my Master of Public Management from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Community Connections: How did your background influence your career choices?

Surmick: I was a low-income kid, but my parents hid it well. I did not realize just how low-income we were until I went to college. That realization contributes greatly to why I ended up in the sector I did and why I believe affordable housing and housing security are so important.

Community Connections: Let’s talk about that. When did you first dive into community development?

Surmick: I’ve been working in community development since I finished my undergraduate degree in 2012, mostly in nonprofit community development.

I started my career as an AmeriCorps VISTA, working on programs related to economic opportunity. I had a few roles spread over a couple of metro areas, but economic opportunity was a uniting theme of the work I did, whether that was focused on affordable housing at NeighborWorks organizations or at the United Way of Lincoln and Lancaster County where I oversaw the organization’s funds distribution and impact efforts.

Community Connections: Given your passion for housing, I was surprised to learn that your job right before joining the Fed was in digital access.

Surmick: That’s right. I was working at a state agency leading community engagement on a federal grant for broadband deployment. Broadband and digital inclusion is so inextricably tied to economic opportunity – education, workforce development, economic development, and so much more. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to connect with communities across the state to learn more about their challenges around this issue. It laid a strong foundation for the community connections needed to do this work well. I realized, too, that telecommunication policy is important and interesting to some, just not me. While all this was happening, I saw the advisor job posted on LinkedIn and knew I had to apply.

Community Connections: That turned out well. Since you joined the Fed in October 2023, you’ve been External Linktraveling around Nebraska. What’s that about?

Surmick: I have spent the last 12 months or so gathering information for a community development landscape report on Nebraska. I’ve held roundtable conversations with community leaders and connected with more than 60 organizations across the state to learn about what’s already working to support lower income communities and households, what challenges persist, and where they see opportunities.

Community Connections: How do you plan to use the findings from the assessment?

Surmick: We’ll use the findings to inform priority community development activities in Nebraska. I expect to release the findings in the first half of 2025. Stay tuned.

Community Connections: The assessment covers a range of topics. What work are you doing related to your passion, affordable housing?

Surmick: I’m really excited to be launching an initiative that explores the capital stack, a key element and consistent challenge to creating affordable housing in communities across the District. Housing developers must cobble together many funding sources to bring affordable housing projects to fruition, thus stacking their capital. This project will unpack those different funding sources and ways that federal, state, and local funding tools have had an impact on that stack.

Community Connections: Rachael, what do you want the community to know about your work?

Surmick: The Fed cares about the economic conditions for everyone, across all income levels.

Community Connections: When you’re not working, I hear you play a mean clarinet.

Surmick: Music is another passion of mine. I’ve played the clarinet since the fourth grade and continue to play to this day in a local community band. And, while I enjoy singing, I can’t say it’s a talent, especially based on the feedback my husband has been known to provide, often on long road trips back home to Pennsylvania after I’ve forced him to listen to a couple hours of Broadway show tunes. Beyond that, I enjoy diving into a good book, taking advantage of the many recreational walking trails in Lincoln, and cooking.