Marlena Crow, MSW, MURP, MLS(e), PDC is the current executive director for Crow House. Her role includes program development and functional management.
A certified Permaculture Design Consultant (PDC), Marlena is a community planner specializing in engagement and participatory budgeting, people-scaled design with a public health core, funding and policy advocacy of sustainable infrastructure and resilient neighborhoods. Crow is considered a trauma-informed planner, specifically working with marginalized communities with social histories of trauma who embody those legacies in place. More conventionally, she has several decades of formal training and experience in project management, preferring Agile and Lean approaches which mirror assets-based community development methods.
Marlena’s equity planning practice is informed by her diverse personal background: she is an Appalachian Melungeon rooted in Eastern Band of Cherokee (Bird Clan), African and Irish heritage. Her origin family’s challenges with mental illness and addiction led her to drop out of high school and move to the Bay Area as an emancipated teen. From there, she pursued professional and education opportunities in a storied, winding path, from San Francisco to Edinburgh and points inbetween. She is also a veteran of the US Coast Guard, where she was trained as a Radioman.
Board members and volunteers contribute to special projects and daily operations.