A life-long Boston resident originally from the Grove Hall neighborhood, Dariela has been an

active leader in her community for most of her life. As a teenager, she worked as a peer mentor to mitigate youth violence and direct young people towards employment opportunities. She also played an active role in building local resilience as a teen ambassador at Mass Audubon's Boston Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary.

She parlayed her passion for community development into the affordable housing realm. This passion is rooted in her lived experience: facing homelessness and growing up in affordable housing throughout the city, Dariela gained a deep understanding of how housing stability can be the foundation for prosperity, just as it was for her.

Over the course of a decade, Dariela worked tirelessly to deepen her understanding of the affordable housing system, so that she could be more effective in creating housing opportunities for other families like her own. She has structured tax credit deals to develop deeply affordable housing; and successfully built income-restricted development projects in high-cost and gentrifying neighborhoods in Boston, from Allston to Roxbury. Her intimate knowledge of every aspect of the housing system sets her apart from her peers.

In 2021, she took a leap of faith and launched DVM Housing Partners—a one-of-a-kind 100% M/WBE affordable housing firm that would center community voice and vision. Within one year of operating, DVM’s leap of faith was rewarded in the form of a successful developer designation for 5 parcels owned by the City of Boston on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan. Through the development of 30 income-restricted homeownership units and below-market

commercial spaces, DVM aims to stem displacement and housing instability and reduce barriers to affordable homeownership for moderate-income families and families of color. In revitalizing long-vacant parcels, she also hopes to catalyze the growth and development for local businesses of color.

Through DVM, Dariela is setting a new standard for affordable housing development in high-cost cities. That standard looks like harnessing the energy and ambition of communities of color to give life to community vision; and creating something new, sustainable, and beautiful in places that have been historically neglected.