Table of Contents
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — City Manager James F. Parajon has appointed Aspasia Xypolia director of the Office of Housing, making permanent a job she has held on an acting basis since May, the city announced Thursday.
The appointment followed a national search. Xypolia was deputy director when Helen S. McIlvaine retired April 30 after 20 years with the city, and she took over as acting director May 1.
McIlvaine joined the city in 2006 as deputy director and was appointed director in 2015. She led implementation of the Housing Master Plan, guided community engagement for Housing 2040 and oversaw more than a dozen affordable housing development and preservation projects.
The largest of those has been moving through its first phase during Xypolia's months as acting director. Housing Alexandria opened a waitlist in April for the first 206 units at the Sansé, at 3600 Mount Vernon Ave. in Arlandria-Chirilagua, which the city has called its most ambitious affordable housing investment to date. Those units were expected to be ready for occupancy in August. The second building, the 79-unit Naja, which will also house a Neighborhood Health clinic, is expected to open in early 2028. Council approved its final piece of financing in March.
"Aspasia's extensive experience in affordable housing development and preservation makes her a perfect fit to continue to lead Alexandria's Office of Housing permanently," Parajon said, adding that he looked forward to working with her on efforts involving renters, homeowners and developers.
In the role, Xypolia oversees the city's housing strategy, policy and investment, including production, preservation and finance, and negotiates with private developers over affordable housing commitments. She also manages the city's partnerships across affordable housing programs.
What she did in Prince George's County
Before coming to Alexandria, Xypolia directed Prince George's County's Department of Housing and Community Development. The city said she led work that created or preserved more than 6,340 housing units in under five years and deployed more than $122 million in emergency rental assistance.
She also revived a dormant right of first refusal law there, which the city said preserved more than 2,260 units of naturally occurring affordable housing. Such laws give a jurisdiction or a tenant group the chance to match an offer before an apartment building is sold, and preserving market-rate affordable apartments has been one of the central threads of Alexandria's Housing 2040 work.
Xypolia holds a master's in city planning from MIT and a master's in landscape architecture from Louisiana State University, and serves on Virginia Housing's Northern Virginia Advisory Council.
What she has said publicly
Xypolia has been the office's main voice before council since before McIlvaine left. She presented the city's five-year consolidated housing plan on April 28, the day before McIlvaine's last, and answered most of the substantive questions.
Council approved that plan unanimously, authorizing the city to seek about $1.06 million in Community Development Block Grant funds and $588,874 in HOME funds, along with a $5.3 million Section 108 loan toward the 495-unit Sansé and Naja development.
Pressed by Mayor Alyia Gaskins on why Alexandria's federal allocation keeps shrinking as need grows, Xypolia explained that HUD's two CDBG formulas favor cities with a growing poverty ratio or a declining population.
"Although it feels like the need is growing in Alexandria, which it does, it grows more in other cities, so their issues look more skewed," she said. The declining allocation, she said, reflects the city's comparatively stronger position even as need remains high.
She was equally direct about what that means in practice. Asked by Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley how the goal of six rehabilitated homes compared with past years, Xypolia said the target is set by the money available rather than the need.
"So we are not really working towards what we would like to do," she said. "We're working towards how far that budget of money can get."
The Office of Housing is carrying out Housing 2040, the update to the city's 2013 Housing Master Plan, which council adopted earlier this year.
Ryan Belmore is an Alexandria resident and the founder and publisher of The Alexandria Brief. Send tips, feedback, and story ideas to ryan@alexandriabrief.com.
