Terri Gage

President & CEO

Habitat for Humanity St. Tammany West

A New Orleans native who grew up in Ascension Parish, Terri and her husband of 35 years have lived in St. Tammany Parish since 1991. They have two young adult daughters, one an aspiring nurse, and one an aspiring social media marketing manager. With a B.A. in History, teaching certification, and a master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling, Terri has 30 years in the human services fields of education, mental health, domestic violence, and housing. While volunteering with Habitat for Humanity St. Tammany West (HFHSTW), she found her passion and joined the staff more than 20 years ago. She was part of the leadership team that earned HFHSTW the Affiliate of the Year award in 2003, and helped lead the affiliate through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Recognizing the lack of important local resources for aspiring homeowners, she led the creation of HFHSTW’s St. Tammany Homeownership Center, to begin offering professional homeownership counseling and education to future homeowners. In 2020, the Center became the parish’s only HUD approved housing counseling agency. Outside of Habitat, she was a Sunday School teacher and volunteered in numerous housing related task forces and work groups, and was a member of the Leadership St. Tammany 2011 cohort, as well as a part of Habitat for Humanity International’s (HFHI) inaugural Achieving Collaborative Capacity for Executive Success (ACCESS) cohort at NC State.

In June of 2021, during the COVID pandemic and explosion in racial justice awareness, and just two months before Hurricane Ida, the HFHSTW Board of Directors named Terri President & CEO. She credits this timing with sharpening her leadership skills and magnifying her sense of urgency about the work of the affiliate. In addition to building back its new construction capacity, the affiliate is working to serve more people in more ways, partnering with St. Tammany Parish to add a much-needed home repair program, and leveraging ARPA funds to create a loan fund to serve homebuyers not served by the affiliate’s traditional new construction program.

Terri is currently a member of the Louisiana Homeownership Think Tank, on its Breaking Barriers to Homeownership Work Group. She led the affiliate’s participation in HFHI’s Advancing Black Homeownership (ABH) Initiative, co-founding the affiliate’s ABH Community Advisory Group. She is also a member of the National Community Reinvestment Corporation’s Communities of Practice Cohort 2023, focusing on exploring ways in which community development practitioners can alleviate economic stressors faced by single mothers, specifically, through the lens of housing, workforce development and entrepreneurship. Locally, she was a member of the 2022 Chevron Community Fellows Cohort, and she continues as a long-time Advisory Board member of St. Tammany Parish Community Action Agency. She is currently working with another non-profit to create a homeownership incubator program for families transitioning from homelessness to homeownership.

Terri enjoys travel, reading, family time, and spending time in nature. She lives in Covington with her husband David and their dog Pepper.