To kick off UPLIFT: Human Stories of Impact, I am featuring a good friend and someone I have admired for decades: Caroline Bas. This is my conversation with this incredible human.
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I’m Caroline Bas, the outgoing Chief Housing Officer at The Kelsey. The Kelsey is a nonprofit that builds affordable, accessible, disability-inclusive housing while also changing policies and norms to make this the standard, not the exception.
I’ve always believed that real change starts at the community level, and that every meaningful movement begins with human connection. At seven years old, I helped my dad knock on doors while he campaigned for the school board. At eight years old, I spent hours sitting on the steps in my backyard reading and interpreting the 26 Amendments. In high school, I scored the highest in my class on the citizenship test. These core memories molded my identity and sense of how citizens can work alongside governmental institutions. This spirit of service carried into my college years, where I worked at homeless shelters and capacity-building organizations, and it has been a through-line in my career.
One of the most powerful moments of my career occurred at a housewarming event for our first community in San Jose. Usually, these events are led by funders and partners, each taking turns in a lineup of speeches about financial contributions and impact metrics. But for this event, we flipped the script. We handed the microphone to the residents. We wanted to hear from the people who actually reside in these homes, the ones whose lives these buildings are meant to change.
One resident stood up and said that just being able to walk into the lobby and see a friendly face made them feel like they had accomplished something that day. Another resident shared that the simple act of sitting in the lobby, where they could exchange a smile or share a few words with neighbors, felt like a profound connection after years of isolation. For someone with limited mobility or social connections, that small interaction can feel like a lifeline. It reminded me that community isn’t just a design principle—it’s an anchor.
Reflecting on that day, I realized it captured so much of why I do this work. It’s easy to get lost in the metrics and funding structures, to worry about budgets and timelines, but these moments cut through all of that. They remind me that the true measure of success is in the human connections we foster, the small but profound ways we make people feel seen and valued. It’s about creating places where people don’t just live, but truly belong.
Who I Am and How I Got Here
I understand both the constraints of scarcity and the advantages of privilege. I know what it means to figure things out without a safety net...
I grew up in a single-parent home, with a mother who had a severe mental illness, attending under-resourced public schools. I’ve spoken about my pathway into nonprofits, from an early sense of civic responsibility to working in a housing shelter through college. Later, I attended a top MBA program and gained access to the connections, networks, and resources that come with it. Moving between these two worlds has shaped my approach to nonprofit work. I understand both the constraints of scarcity and the advantages of privilege. I know what it means to have to figure things out without a safety net—a skill that has served me well in nonprofits, where resources are always stretched thin. It also means I can see the gaps that others might miss, where systems break down for those who don’t have the same access to protections I’ve been fortunate enough to rely on.
After earning my MBA and working for a few years in consulting, one day I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about housing. I was living in the Bay Area, watching the affordable housing crisis intensify. I realized that every societal problem I cared about—from economic inequality to racial justice—was somehow connected to the cost and availability of housing. I became deeply interested in the history of redlining, zoning policies, and their impact on racial and economic inequality, as described in Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law. I saw that housing wasn’t just a piece of the puzzle—it was the foundation on which so many other issues rested. It felt like the root cause, the place where I could make the most impact. I found myself pulled back into the nonprofit sector, not just out of exasperation with the housing crisis, but out of a deep sense of urgency.
I joined The Kelsey as its third employee, drawn to the organization’s bold, community-first vision for housing. Since then, I’ve helped build the organization from a startup to a leader in the field. Today, we have two housing projects in operation, 25 people on our team, 300 more homes in the pipeline, and we’ve helped influence policies in 16 states. It’s a reminder that, when we come together around a shared purpose, we can build something transformative.
What I’m Most Proud Of
For me, community isn’t just a word—it’s the foundation of everything I care about. Nonprofits, at their best, create real, connected communities. This is something we undervalue as a society. We talk about numbers and impact metrics, but we rarely talk about the quieter, deeply human connections that nonprofits foster.
This commitment to community also means breaking down barriers. The affordable housing world is filled with bureaucratic obstacles that make accessing deeply affordable housing a daunting, often demoralizing process for residents.
For example, in San Francisco, the process to access affordable housing starts six months before a project opens. Residents have to complete a pre-application with basic eligibility questions, then wait in silence, sometimes for months, to see if they’ve been selected through a lottery. If they get a call, they have just five days to schedule an in-person appointment, often during work hours, and bring a mountain of paperwork. This includes a 10-page application, government-issued IDs for every household member, six months of pay stubs, bank statements, birth certificates for any children, and documentation for any government benefits. If there’s an irregular deposit in their account—maybe a friend Venmo’d them for dinner—they need to explain it, often requiring additional letters or affidavits. People with disabilities also need a doctor’s note to verify any needed accommodations.
All of this paperwork is reviewed by multiple layers of compliance—property managers, syndicators, auditors, banks, and sometimes third-party consultants—all of whom charge fees that are ultimately passed on to taxpayers.
At The Kelsey, we’re working to break down these barriers. We provide technical assistance to smaller nonprofits and developers, helping them access tools like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). This tax credit is the largest source of funding for affordable housing in the U.S., but it’s notoriously complex. By translating this technical language into plain, accessible terms and creating templates that reduce the paperwork burden, we’re making it possible for these organizations to build the kind of deeply affordable, community-oriented housing that our society so desperately needs.
This kind of gate-opening isn’t just about making processes easier—it’s about fundamentally shifting who has the power to create housing solutions, putting more control in the hands of the communities that need it most. It’s about making the system work for the people it’s supposed to serve, not just for those who can afford high-priced consultants.
What I Wish Others Knew About Nonprofits
I wish more people understood that nonprofits are often held to higher standards than their corporate counterparts, despite operating with fewer resources. They’re expected to be both mission-driven and metrics-focused, often without the financial cushion of a for-profit enterprise. There’s also a misconception that nonprofits are inherently inefficient, which isn’t fair. Many nonprofits are incredibly creative and resourceful, doing a lot with a little.
I also think that effective cross-sector collaboration requires more than just a shared mission statement. It requires real conversations about values, priorities, and motivations. Nonprofits often have deeply rooted, community-centered goals that don’t always align neatly with the bottom-line focus of for-profit partners—and recognizing this early on can save a lot of frustration later.
My Hope for the Future
Ultimately, I want to see a world where our systems are built for progress, not process…
We are all human and we are wired to survive in community. I value that we have really strong civil liberties and individualism in the U.S., but it comes at the expense of collectivism. I try to show the value of collectivism so we can slowly make the choices within society where we take better care of each other.
In the long run, I want to see a world where our systems are built for progress, not process—where we remove the barriers that make it so difficult for people to access basic needs like housing, education, and healthcare. I’ve seen how deeply rooted gatekeeping and excessive bureaucracy can stifle progress and limit impact, and I believe we can do better. I hope to play a role in reimagining these systems, making them simpler, more inclusive, and more humane. It’s about trusting the communities we serve to know best what they need, and giving them the power and resources to build solutions on their own terms.
I am working toward seeing this shift to ‘progress over process’ in my lifetime. More than anything, I hope we never lose sight of the power of community—the simple, human connections that make this work matter.
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🔗 Let’s keep the conversation going.
This story is part of UPLIFT: Human Stories of Impact — a series spotlighting the people driving bold change in our communities. If it resonated with you, I’d love for you to share it or leave a comment.
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