Tarik Abdelazim is the Director of National Technical Assistance at Community Progress, America’s nonprofit leader for turning “Vacant Spaces into Vibrant Places.”
Abdelazim joined Community Progress in July 2014 and currently oversees the National Technical Assistance team. In this role, Abdelazim leads the delivery of a range of technical assistance and capacity-building services to urban, rural, and suburban communities across the country. He has helped communities design and launch innovative programming that have become models in the national field of practice, and has co-authored seminal publications on the land banking movement nationally and within New York State. Abdelazim’s work reflects a strong commitment to centering racial equity in the broader field of community development.
Prior to joining Community Progress, Abdelazim completed eight years of public service in Binghamton, New York under two different executive titles in City Hall. For four years, he served as Deputy Mayor, leading high-priority interdepartmental teams, driving innovative IT/IM reform, and directing award-winning blight prevention initiatives – which twice won first place distinction in Public Administration and Management from the New York Conference of Mayor’s Local Government Achievement Awards. Abdelazim then served for nearly four years as Director of Planning, Housing and Community Development, and spearheaded a variety of cross-sector collaborations around a set of livability and sustainability goals, again winning national distinction for inclusive, bold community development programs.
Abdelazim received his Masters in Arts and Humanities from New York University, with an interdisciplinary focus on politics, ecology, and philosophy. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Hamilton College in biology. He works remotely from his hometown in upstate New York, and enjoys hiking, gardening, and advocating alongside others for racial and economic justice.