Institute Faculty
Dina Lehmann-Kim
Program Manager of ConnectHomeUSA; Office of Public Housing Investments, Community and Supportive Services, U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development
Dina Lehmann-Kim is Program Manager of ConnectHomeUSA in the Office of Public Housing Investments, Community and Supportive Services Division with the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development. Dina came to HUD in 1998 as a Presidential Management Fellow to work on the Multifamily Housing Neighborhood Networks program. Established in 1995, the Neighborhood Networks program was one of the first federally-sponsored digital inclusion programs. The goal of the program was to prepare HUD-assisted residents for employment in the computer-era. Neighborhood Networks centers are conveniently located computer labs in HUD-assisted housing. In 2002, she moved to the Office of Public and Indian Housing where she helped launch the Public Housing Neighborhood Networks grant program. Today, she works in the Office of Public Housing Investments, where she manages HUD’s latest digital inclusion program, ConnectHomeUSA. Originally launched in 2015 under the leadership of HUD Secretary Julián Castro, ConnectHome began as a pilot program to test whether the private and public sectors could work together to close the “homework gap” in 28 pilot communities. In 2017, the initiative was rebranded as ConnectHomeUSA, to reflect its expanded scope – targeting all populations from kids to seniors – and its goal to onboard 100 communities from across the country by 2020, a goal it achieved in October of that year. CHUSA will announce its next expansion to an additional 50-100 communities later in 2023.
Areas of Expertise
- Community of practice
- Federal grant and contract management
- Partnership-building and management
- Technical assistance development for digital inclusion programs