Robert Terrell is the Executive Director of the Office of Fair Housing and Equity. He is a long-time Roxbury resident with years of dedicated service to creating fair and equitable access to housing in Boston. He previously served as the Fair Housing, Equity, and Inclusion Officer in the Boston Housing Authority’s Office of Civil Rights. Mr. Terrell also has held leadership positions with a number of local organizations such as the Roxbury Neighborhood Council, the Madison Park Development Corporation Board of Directors, the Citizen’s Housing and Planning Association’s (CHAPA) Policy Leadership Council, Action for Equity’s Housing Committee, the Boston Branch of the NAACP, the Planning Committee of the Annual Fair Housing and Civil Rights Conference, and the Assessment of Fair Housing’s Community Advisory Committee.

His most recent projects include assisting in the development of the Boston Housing Authority’s Racial Equity and Social Justice Initiative, chairing the Boston Housing Authority’s Assessment of Fair Housing Working Group, assisting in the development of the Boston Housing Authority’s ECHO Program, co-authoring a study on gentrification and displacement in Roxbury, Massachusetts; developing new Article within the City of Boston’s Zoning Code to help prevent gentrification and displacement within transit corridors and participated in the creation of a new Assessment of Fair Housing for the City of Boston. In October 2021, Mr. Terrell was the recipient of CHAPA’s Policy Leadership Award for his work in the field of Fair Housing.

Mr. Terrell is He is a part-time lecturer in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University where he earned his Masters in Public Policy where his research centers topics including housing, economic development, public transportation, sustainable development, economic democracy, gentrification, displacement, civil rights, and public policy. He also holds a BA in Government and Sociology from Bowdoin College.