Lauren Nichols

Lauren is a community development and disaster management professional who serves state and local governments in the development and implementation of their community development, disaster recovery, and mitigation programs. Through her work, she delivers sustainable, compliant, and resilient housing, buyout, economic revitalization, public services, infrastructure, and planning programs that prioritize low- and moderate- income households.

With a deep and practical understanding of Community Development Block Grants Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) regulations and years of experience directly implementing the programs with thoughtful colleagues and different levels of public engagement, Lauren has collected a comprehensive inventory of best practices and applied solutions for performing outreach and engagement, and for designing, standing-up, and running a program through closeout. Through her ability to effectively collaborate and find common ground with other federal partners and various levels of governance, she helps states and local governments leverage their internal and cross-agency efforts, as well as other private and federal funding sources, such as disaster and mitigation funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Economic Development Administration.