As director of program development and strategic initiatives at the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA), Meagan Tokunaga Block ’15 conveys how the Golden State can provide better assistance to low- and moderate-income renters and homebuyers.
Appointed to the role earlier this year by Governor Gavin Newsom, the Pomona College alumna distills technical concepts and core questions surrounding affordable housing down to bullet points for the Legislature and other government partners to decide how to optimize CalHFA programs.
Tokunaga Block, a native of Albany, California, cut her teeth in public service at Pomona, where she earned degrees in public policy analysis (with a concentration in environmental analysis) and politics.
She credits Pomona professors Char Miller and David Menefee-Libey for teaching her how to write concisely and informatively—a must when discussing something with as many complexities as affordable housing, she says.
“I’m grateful to do work that feels impactful,” she says. “Early on in my time at Pomona—especially in classes on market failures and externalities [and] thinking about ways we need policy to help achieve our societal goals—I knew I wanted to work in government.”
“I knew that’s where I could really make a difference.”
On top of being a double major, Tokunaga Block started 140 games for the Sagehens’ softball team, her cheery disposition a salve for the ups and downs baked into the sport. In her four years on the diamond, she learned valuable lessons about leadership and teamwork that still resonate in her career.
“Learning how to put differences aside for the benefit of the collective was a humbling experience that shaped my perspective on leadership,” she says. “I was surrounded by extremely inspiring women who are now occupational therapists, IRONMAN triathletes and marathon race fundraisers.”
“We’ve had a lot of fun staying in touch and keeping up with one another.”
Tokunaga Block started at the California Department of Finance as an Executive Fellow in the Capital Fellows Program, which funds 10 months of paid work in California’s executive branch in Sacramento. She helped develop the Governor’s affordable housing budget proposals, evaluated housing program data and supported departmental operations.
Tokunaga Block assumed increasingly important roles across four years at the Department of Finance before landing in the State Controller’s Office as a policy advisor. A subsequent three-year tenure with the California Housing Partnership placed her in rooms with nonprofit affordable housing developers, and she managed the financial projections for a $1.5 billion, 30-project pipeline totaling 2,500 homes.
Tokunaga Block has helped negotiate legislation to reform housing permitting laws and reorganize state government housing functions, and in July, the Governor signed a bill that she worked on to streamline and align state affordable housing resources.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to feel like your work makes a difference,” she says. “I love that I have a role to play in making things work better on behalf of Californians in need of affordable housing.”
Reflective and curious when she started at Pomona, Tokunaga Block received the guidance here to blaze a path to the State Capitol building, where she’s maximizing her impact and demonstrating to others the power of public service.
“Pomona students are a very capable and powerful group, and they have lots of options available to them,” she says. “I encourage them to think about where they can give back. There are endless opportunities and ways to contribute in public service.”