William C. Apgar, Jr. has joined the board of directors of Preservation of Affordable Housing Inc. (POAH), a nonprofit housing organization that has rescued and restored almost 8,000 affordable housing apartments in nine states and the District of Columbia. Apgar was one of the first board members of POAH, which was founded as the successor of NEF (National Equity Fund) Properties Inc.

Apgar is a senior scholar at the Joint Center for Housing Studies and a lecturer in public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He researches housing, community and economic development, housing finance and capital markets and leads the Credit, Capital, and Communities Project, an ongoing evaluation of the impact of the changing structure of the mortgage industry and related capital markets on access to affordable homeownership and rental housing opportunities.

"The Board is honored to have Bill rejoin us at this time," said POAH Board Chairman Herbert Morse in a statement. "As POAH enters its second decade, we are grateful for the vision and solid foundation he helped provide in the organization’s early years and we welcome him back to help us continue this important work into the future."

From 2009 to 2011, Apgar served as a senior advisor for mortgage finance in the office of the secretary of the US Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), where he was involved in interagency activities to reform and restructure the nation’s housing finance system. He served as HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan’s liaison to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and the Financial Stability Oversight Board (FINSoB) – the entity created to monitor the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

From 1997 to 2001, Apgar was the assistant secretary of housing at HUD, where he oversaw the operation of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and co-chaired the joint HUD-Treasury Task Force on Predatory Lending.

Apgar served as the chairman of the board of the Homeownership Preservation Foundation and is a member of the board of directors of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. He graduated from Williams College and holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.