Lyndia Downie '83

Lyndia is president of the Pine Street Inn, the largest homeless services provider in New England. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, Pine Street Inn provides a comprehensive range of services to thousands of homeless men and women each day, with a goal of helping them achieve stability and permanent housing as quickly as possible.

Under Lyndia's leadership, the Inn has helped bring the city's population of unsheltered homeless individuals below two percent. She has dedicated her career to the Inn and has helped shift the paradigm from sheltering homeless men and women on a short-term basis to assisting them in finding affordable permanent housing.

Her strategic approach in coupling housing like the Pine Street Inn with other supports - access to medical doctors and mental health professionals, job training and skills development, and substance use treatment and recovery services - has been the proven key to her success in not only achieving a reduction in homelessness in Boston, but sustaining it over time.

Lyndia's outstanding leadership and achievements have been recognized by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce's 2010 Pinnacle Award and in 2019 by the Commonwealth Institute who designated her one of the "Top Women-Led Businesses in MA."

At UVM Lyndia majored in English in the College of Arts and Sciences. Currently Lyndia, her husband and two children, her basset hound Matilda and her kitten Lucy, live in a house built in 1820 in Norton, Massachusetts.