We are excited to share that Nicole Branca, Associate Commissioner, Community Services, at the NYC Department of Veterans’ Services (DVS), has been selected as New Destiny’s next Executive Director.

She will begin her tenure on August 10, when Carol Corden, our Executive Director will be stepping down after 23 years of leading New Destiny. We could not be more grateful to Carol for her absolutely exceptional leadership, which has been directly responsible for the provision of safe, permanent, and affordable housing to thousands of domestic violence survivors.

We are confident Nicole is just the woman to lead New Destiny into the next phase of its development. Nicole has more than 20 years of experience in homeless and low-income housing policy and program development work, most recently helping to lead the effort to end veteran homelessness in NYC and establishing the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services (DVS).

At DVS, Nicole developed a three-pronged program model to help homeless veterans find and maintain affordable housing: a peer-to-peer program that partners veterans with an advocate to support them through each step of the housing process; a Housing Coordination Center that collaborates with owners to manage vacancy referrals; and an aftercare and eviction prevention system. Nicole also developed a new rental subsidy program for disconnected veterans, co-administered with the NYC Housing Authority, and co-chaired the citywide Veterans Task Force, a committee of government and nonprofit partners working together to make veteran homelessness rare, brief and non-reoccurring.

Before joining DVS, Nicole was Deputy Executive Director at the Supportive Housing Network of New York where she led a myriad of advocacy and systems improvements efforts to expand resources and expedite the creation of supportive housing across the state. During this time, Nicole co-chaired the NYC Continuum of Care (CoC), overseeing $100 million in federal homeless housing funding. She also spearheaded several strategic initiatives that allowed the CoC to meet federal regulations and increase homeless housing funding for NYC.

Nicole is a proud AmeriCorps alumna. She received her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Babson College and her MPA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

Welcome Nicole!

Jessie Gabriel
Board Chair