Mossik Hacobian joined Boston’s Higher Ground as its Executive Director in June 2011 following a 33-year tenure at Urban Edge starting as rehab specialist. Director of Real Estate Development, Executive Director and President. During Mossik’s tenure, Urban Edge developed or preserved over 1,300 units of housing and managed more than 1,100 homes and apartments.
Starting July 1, 2024, Mossik serves as Advisor to Higher Ground’s new Executive Director Brandy Brooks focused on student homelessness initiatives, financial management, fundraising, and strategic planning.
Mossik’s interest in community development sparked during a nine-month design project in East Harlem, which he had undertaken while attending Columbia University School of Architecture.
Mossik moved to Boston after his junior year in architecture school for two years of alternate service as a conscientious objector and worked as a community organizer in East Boston for the Planning Office for Urban Affairs of the Boston Archdiocese. During those two years he helped launch the East Boston Community News and was part of the team that founded the East Boston Community Development Corporation.
Following his two years of services, Mossik and two friends embarked on a affordable housing project and renovated abandoned residential buildings in East Boston which prepared him for his decades long career in affordable housing and community development.
In 2005 Mossik was one of 12 nonprofit leaders selected as a Barr Fellow who went on a learning journey to South Africa and Zimbabwe at the start of a 3-month sabbatical. His awards include Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Leadership Award (2005), and MACDC, UMass, and MIRA.
Mossik is a Trustee of the Foley Hoag Foundation, has served on the board of MIRA and the Cathleen Stone Island (formerly Thompson Island) Outward Bound School and serves as Chair of the Island’s Asset Management Committee.
Mossik and his wife Joan live in East Boston in one of the first formerly abandoned buildings he helped renovate. They have two sons and two grandchildren.
