2023 Special Honoree: Dede Devine puts a face on the term ‘lasting legacy’

Jennifer Dokes, for LISC Phoenix

10.10.2023 — LISC StoriesCommunities on the Line

“Where do you start and where do you end?”

Asked to summarize Diana “Dede” Yazzie Devine’s extraordinary contributions to Arizona, Joe Keeper, senior director of real estate development at Native American Connections, answered the question with a question. And then, before he discussed Dede the mastermind of trailblazing approaches to service and program delivery, health care, affordable housing, homelessness and community development, he talked about Dede the person.

“Where do you start and where do you end? … From the first moment I met her, I just felt like you could tell that giving came from the heart,” Keeper said of his former boss of more than 20 years. “She didn’t see what might have ailed someone or what they were afflicted with. She saw who they could be. That was regardless of if you were staff or client or a person she met for the first time at a meeting or a conference. In that way, it was really inspiring. You want to work for someone that just believed in people so much.”

It’s a tough task measuring Dede’s legacy of innovative thinking, business planning, leadership skills and dedication has had in setting a standard for healthy, inclusive, financially feasible, environmentally friendly living in Arizona for people with low incomes. During a 50-year career, 44 of those years with Native American Connections, the recently retired president and CEO gave her all in a professional role that never felt like a job to her.

“It was my life’s work,” Dede said.

Where do you start and where do you end?

So often over the decades Dede has been so far ahead of the times when it comes to creating and maintaining healthy communities. The language and activities familiar to us today regarding second chances; permanent supportive housing; continuum of care; housing is health care; energy-efficiency living; transit-oriented development and cultural neighborhoods are philosophies and practices baked long ago into NAC’s comprehensive, integrated approach to serving clients.

Knowing the historic, cultural connection Native Americans have to the central Phoenix corridor is why NAC established its base of operations there, bought property for affordable housing along the transit corridor and championed the establishment of the landmark Phoenix Indian School Visitors Center. NAC knew to do this because of Dede’s insistence that it listen to the people it serves and then act strategically to follow the organization’s mission to improve lives of individuals and families, first within the Native American population and then more broadly as it grew from its behavioral health service roots to an Arizona community development organization powerhouse.

NAC began in 1972 by serving a handful of men in one house who were recovering from alcohol addiction. It has since developed 1,000 residences, including many with LEED platinum certification, and established programs and services that touch about 10,000 men, women and children a year. Under Dede’s leadership, NAC deftly used all LISC community development tools — all of LISC lending products for affordable rental housing, the Home Matters Arizona Fund, Arizona Housing Fund, Arizona Community Foundation Pre-development Fund, National Equity Fund, New Markets Support Corporation (now Broadstreet), HUD Section 4 and Caterpillar Foundation — to help achieve organizational goals.

Her life’s work drew the attention it deserved. She was named this year as one of USA Today’s Women of the Year and was one of Arizona’s 48 Most Intriguing Women in 2012 as part of the state’s centennial celebration.

Dede’s huge haul of awards and honors, including this special one we offer her as our longtime, essential partner, are a testament to her impact. But they also should be bookmarks in the history of equitable and comprehensive community development.

“She’s had so many accolades through the years — on the behavioral health side, on the housing side, on the community side,” Keeper said. “It’s not really like you can pinpoint her in one kind of area. It just felt like she was the Deion Sanders of this world. She could have played professional in anything, and she just happened to dabble in it all.”

Where do you start and where do you end?

The grace and drive that compelled Dede to succeed at her life’s work was forged while raised in a family of seven children, long before she found her calling to serve Native American communities during a University of Wisconsin college internship working with the Ojibwe people.

But the thing about a full understanding of Dede’s impact is that in some ways it’s too soon to tell. Clearly, Dede leaves behind tangible evidence of her career. But there’s so much more to that work than bricks and mortar.

Teresa Brice, LISC Phoenix executive director from 2006-2014, said Dede’s legacy will “benefit our community for years into the future.”

“She had a singular vision — to create quality, affordable, service-enriched housing for residents in need, and offered multi-modal therapies in a culturally sensitive environment,” Brice said. “In doing so, she built more than housing. She built bridges between multiple sectors, communities and partners. Simply put, she is the best.”

Another reason to hold off answering the question of where to end the story of a community leader like Dede is that it’s not over.

Since retirement on June 30, Dede has spent time with her family and on traveling. But she also continues to serve on boards, foundations and councils, including the national Corporation for Supportive Housing, Vitalyst Health Foundation and the Governor's Interagency and Community Council on Homelessness and Housing.

She said she’s always looking for “meaningful things to do.”

“I’ll aways be busy,” Dede said. “I’ll always give. I will always give.”

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