Alejandro is a Master of Urban and Regional Planning candidate at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. His interests lie at the intersection of housing, design, and community development issues in low-income communities like his own of South Central. While at UCLA Luskin, Alejandro serves as Co-Chair to the Planners of Color for Social Equity (PCSE) and is a Student Advisory Board member to the Institute on Inequality and Democracy. He is also a part of the Luskin Senior Fellows Leadership Program where he worked closely with former LA City Councilmember, Michael Woo and has worked with Luskin peers on a white paper addressing housing and zoning concerns to LA Council District 5. Most recently Alejandro worked with Urban Planning Chair and Professor, Vinit Mukhija as a Graduate Student Researcher to evaluate the Small Housing, Big Impact program in California. Alejandro also had the opportunity to support entitlement applications as a Land Use Planning Intern with land use consulting firm Three6ixty in Culver City.
Prior to starting his graduate program, Alejandro worked for LA-Más, an urban design nonprofit organization, where he led and managed various projects related to their housing and public realm work. He supported the development and implementation of the Backyard Homes Project that leverages the existing accessory dwelling unit (ADU) state policy in California to incentivize property owners to build an ADU in their backyard to rent out to a Section 8 voucher holder. Alejandro also worked with other nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles focused on housing and land use issues, including LA Family Housing and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE). Alejandro is honored to be working with the Los Angeles City Chief Design Officer as a 2020-2021 David Bohnett Fellow. He is looking forward to working on projects that integrate community-led design for communities that have historically lacked infrastructure investment.