Shanti Abedin

Shanti Abedin is the Senior Director of Programs at the Melville Charitable Trust. In this role, she guides key initiatives, manages housing justice grants, and leads the evaluation of the Trust’s investments. Shanti works to develop innovative models to strengthen housing stability, address systemic racial inequities, and foster cross-sector partnerships to increase housing opportunities for those most disproportionately impacted by housing instability.

Shanti brings more than 15 years of experience in fair and affordable housing, racial equity, and community development. Before joining the Trust, she served as Vice President of Housing & Community Development at the National Fair Housing Alliance, where she oversaw a national portfolio of housing and community development initiatives that served communities harmed by housing discrimination a. She previously also held multiple director roles at NeighborWorks America where her work focused on community stabilization and preserving lasting affordability through community ownership and shared equity housing models.

Shanti was a 2023 Center for Community Investment Fulcrum Fellow and serves on the boards of Shelterforce, the leading publication for housing and community development practitioners, and Hope and a Home, a nonprofit transitional housing organization in Washington, DC. She holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Sydney and a B.A. in Art History from the University of Maryland, College Park.