Mark Johnston
Assistant Secretary, Acting
Office of Community Planning and Development
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Mark Johnston has been appointed by President Obama as HUD's Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Community Planning and Development. In this role, he oversees more than $7 billion in assistance to America's communities-grants programs that build affordable housing for low-income persons, help communities plan and finance their development, and provide housing to homeless persons and families. He also oversees additional programs that respond to the current economic climate, including stimulus funding, disaster recovery, neighborhood stabilization, and homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing. To administer this array of programs, Mark leads the management of approximately 800 federal employees at headquarters and in the field.

Mark has a long history of government service in strengthening communities, most recently as HUD's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Needs. He has also served as HUD's Senior Advisor on Homelessness and as Deputy Director for the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. He joined the federal service when selected as a Presidential Management Intern in 1983, where he worked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to alleviate poverty and homelessness.

Mark's work also emphasizes interagency collaboration. In 2012, Mark was a key part of a team from HUD and the Department of Veterans Affairs that won the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America ("Sammie") Citizen Services Medal for their work to reduce veterans homelessness by 12 percent in one year.