Ms. Ballou joined GMJ in 2009 following a 20-year public sector career in housing, human services, and community development. Early in her career, she served as the housing programs administrator for the City of Port Arthur where she administered affordable housing programs, developed program guidelines and policies, funded, and monitored non-profit agencies, wrote federal grant applications, and monitored multi-million-dollar budgets.
She later served as deputy executive director of the Beaumont Housing Authority where she managed day-to-day operations, including 200 scattered sites and 900 public housing units, as well as design and rehabilitation of multi-family units and oversight of four divisions, including property services, resident empowerment, property development and security.
Before joining GMJ, Ms. Ballou served as the executive director of the Housing and Human Services Department for the City of Irving, Texas, where she was responsible for overall operation of the department. She administered a $25 million budget including CDBG, HOME, ADDI and ESG. She was responsible for writing grant applications and funding community development projects, negotiating real estate and consultant contracts.
In this position, she also served as vice president of the Irving Housing Finance Corporation, which she helped form. In that role she developed and implemented financial procedures to expedite real estate transactions, acquired, rehabilitated, and constructed affordable housing and developed a foreclosure purchase program for resale to qualified buyers.
Since joining GMJ, Ms. Ballou has written successful grant applications on behalf of the firm’s clients and been responsible for all aspects of grant administration for complex state and federal grants. She is a HUD-certified housing counselor.
