Sue Ortiz

Sue Ortiz is employed with Habitat for Humanity of Michigan, the State Support Organization (SSO) for Habitat Affiliates in the state. In her role with Habitat, Sue is working to ensure that financial education and coaching is available in every community, either by direct service through the affiliate, in partnership with other non profit agencies, or directly through the coaching staff at the Habitat of Michigan SSO. She is also responsible for public and private sector grant writing and interacts with Habitat’s HUD Intermediary, NeighborWorks. Sue worked for over 23 years with Inner City Christian Federation (ICCF) where she was directly involved in visioning, delivering and supervising ICCF’s housing enablement programs and services. She has extensive experience in housing counseling, coaching and education with consumers and was the author of ICCF’s public sector proposals and grants that focused on homeless prevention and rehousing, rental counseling and support services, financial education and coaching, home ownership enablement and post purchase / home retention counseling. In 1996 Sue earned a Master’s Degree in Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology from Western Michigan University.

Sue was instrumental in the design, launch and supervision of three lending programs at ICCF – the HomeStart Mortgage Program, created as a shared-risk loan pool to provide mortgages to low income consumers; Providence Home Mortgage, a wholly owned subsidiary mortgage company of ICCF; and the Just Loan Program, a consumer lending program with financial coaching services, designed as an alternative to predatory payday lending.

Sue worked extensively with the State Housing Authority from 1999 to 2009 as a consultant and technical assistance provider. In this capacity, Sue helped MSHDA create a network of trained housing counselors in Michigan. Her efforts in this initiative included program design, curriculum development, technical assistance services and MSHDA Network counselor training.