Shkëlqim Kelmendi is the founder and CEO of Housing Connector, a technology-led nonprofit that partners with property owners to connect vacant apartments with people who need housing. Born in Peja, Kosova, he escaped with his family in April 1999, received refugee status in Macedonia, and resettled in Dallas, Texas. He studied economics, began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and moved to the Seattle Housing Authority, where he saw applicants rejected over credit scores, criminal records, and past evictions. Housing Connector has since housed more than 15,000 people and helped another 20,000 keep their housing, operating across seven metropolitan markets.
Pikë kryesore:
- Shkëlqim Kelmendi founded Housing Connector, which has housed more than 15,000 people and helped another 20,000 keep their housing.
- His family escaped Kosova in April 1999 and resettled in Dallas after receiving refugee status in Macedonia. His mother, a pediatrician in Kosova, worked at a day care in Dallas, and his father, a lawyer, delivered pizza.
- He saw the problem while at the Seattle Housing Authority, where applicants were turned away over credit scores, criminal history, and past evictions, and applied an economic lens to treat it as supply and demand.
- Housing Connector now operates in seven metropolitan markets and aims to reach 15 cities and 50,000 people a year.
- He also founded the Young Albanians Network in Dallas, which continues today, and anchors his company culture on the Albanian principle of Besa.
In April 1999, a family fled Prishtina and made their way to Macedonia. Months later, they received what Shkëlqim Kelmendi still describes as one of the greatest gifts of his life: refugee status to come to the United States. They resettled in Dallas.
They arrived carrying loss. During the war, the family lost his grandparents, two uncles, and a cousin.
In Dallas, his mother, a pediatrician in Kosova, took a job at a day care. His father, a lawyer, delivered pizza and worked in restaurants.
“I think about how difficult it must have been for them to put aside their pride and identity,” Shkëlqim says, “and it is the reason I am so motivated to maximize the opportunity they gave me.”
He has done something specific with it. Housing Connector, the nonprofit he founded, has moved more than 15,000 people into homes and helped another 20,000 keep the ones they had.
Profil i shpejtë
OBSH: Shkëlqim Kelmendi, Founder and CEO of Housing Connector
Cfarë: A technology-led nonprofit that partners with property owners to connect vacant units to people who need housing
Ku: Headquartered in Seattle, operating across seven metropolitan markets
Trashëgimia: Born in Peja, Kosova; resettled in Dallas as a refugee in 1999
Njohja: Obama Foundation USA Leader; boards including United Way of King County and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber; former chair of the Seattle Human Rights Commission
From Peja to Dallas
Shkëlqim was born into a family deeply involved in the fight for Kosova’s freedom, and that shaped how he sees the world.
“My childhood and worldview were shaped by my family’s belief that a different and better future was possible, but it required a leap of faith and the willingness to take risks and make sacrifices,” he says.
The cost was severe. Then came the escape, Macedonia, and Dallas.
Arriving was its own challenge. Nobody in the family spoke English, and they were still absorbing what they had left behind.
“What we had, though, was the incredible support and compassion of the local community, who opened doors for our family and helped us gain traction and a foundation,” he says.
His parents stayed fourteen years before moving back to Kosova in 2013. He watched what those years cost them, and he has never treated it as background detail.
His parents also backed him completely. “They instilled a belief in me that anything is possible if you work hard and believe in yourself.”
He lost his mother, Flora, to cancer last year. He speaks about her with gratitude rather than grief.
“One of the things I am so grateful for is to know how proud she was of me and the work I am doing to help others,” he says. His mother spent her career helping children with little or no access to medical care. “I like to think that in some way I am continuing her work, even if it comes in a different form.”
Economics, Then Seattle
Shkëlqim studied economics because it explained things.
“Economics is a framework for understanding the world, people, and systems around us, and it is something I have always loved,” he says.
He joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas to learn from the best people in the field, and left with a wider sense of what the training was for. “I realized that there was such a broader application of my skills and I fell in love with exploring ways to make our community better.”
Then he moved to Seattle, and the scale of street homelessness stopped him.
“I quickly realized that that was the biggest problem we were facing, and so naturally I wanted to run right into it and see how I could help.”
Working with the Seattle Housing Authority to place families, he noticed the same wall over and over.
“I realized very quickly how many individuals were being told no because of their credit score or criminal history or past evictions,” he says. “That’s really when I leaned on my economics background to evaluate the situation from a different lens. I realized that this was a supply-and-demand issue and that there was a solution that we could deploy to help families get housed while maximizing the existing infrastructure.”
That was the genesis of Housing Connector.
How Housing Connector Works
Shkëlqim starts with the scale of the problem.
“Right now, there are over 800,000 people in America who are homeless and an additional 4 million who are on the verge of losing their housing.”
The model is simple to state. “What Housing Connector does is partner with property owners and managers to connect vacant units to people who need it today.”
The result, in his words: “We have built the technology and the relationships that have housed over 15,000 people and supported an additional 20,000 in maintaining their housing. It is a technology-led nonprofit that is making sure that no family is left on the street when we have vacant units today.”
Everything depends on landlords saying yes, and he is direct about how that conversation actually goes.
“The conversation centers on the real business value we provide landlords,” he says. Housing Connector helps them fill vacancies, ensures rent gets paid, and supports a stable community that generates value for the business while letting owners be part of the solution.
“What they realize is that there is an opportunity for us to create win-win solutions for both communities, businesses, and the individuals in need.”
The First Year, and Everyone Who Said No
Getting the first property to agree took months.
“Starting something new is not for the faint of heart, and if you do not have the conviction to bring your vision to reality, you will be beaten down by so many naysayers,” he says.
The doubt came from every direction, including the top. “In that time, I heard from friends, from former coworkers, and even the mayor of a major city tell me that this was not gonna work.”
His conclusion is one every founder will recognize: “Any successful entrepreneur must be slightly delusional, and luckily for Housing Connector and me, I don’t quit very easily.”
Scaling Without Flattening
Housing Connector now runs in seven markets: Seattle, Denver, Dallas, Portland, Orlando, Miami, and Newark. Expansion taught him something that changed the model.
“When I started, I had the belief that we would design a solution that would be able to plug and play in any community across the United States,” he says. It was partly true. “The last 20% is hyper-local. It requires deep trust and connections and relationships in the community for us to be able to change systems and policies and ultimately make impact at that local level.”
So the organization standardizes and centralizes operations for scale while hiring local leaders who already hold the relationships.
Running an organization that answers to government, landlords, and people in crisis at the same time taught him something related.
“Each one measures success differently, and you cannot ask any of them to adopt someone else’s metric,” he says. “Government asks whether it’s accountable and equitable. Landlords ask whether it’s profitable and low-risk. Case managers ask whether it’s fast and sustainable. A person in crisis asks whether they’ll have keys this month.”
He does not treat those as conflicts. “Those aren’t competing values, but they’re different currencies, and my job is to run the exchange between all of them.”
In practice, that means changing language for every room. “We don’t walk into a property management company talking about ending homelessness; we talk about days-to-lease and reduced vacancy loss. We don’t walk into a public agency talking about ROI; we talk about cost per placement against the cost of a shelter bed.”
What Most People Get Wrong
Shkëlqim pushes back hard on the standard story about homelessness.
“People assume homelessness is a personal-failure story: addiction, mental illness, bad choices. Those exist. But the largest single population entering homelessness in this country is people who simply ran out of money in a market that got too expensive.”
He points to the data. “The strongest predictor of homelessness in a city isn’t addiction rates or weather; it’s high rent costs as a share of income.”
Besa, and the Young Albanians Network
Shkëlqim built an Albanian community before he built anything else. In Dallas, he met other young Albanians working as prosecutors, lawyers, accountants, musicians, and entrepreneurs, and started the Young Albanians Network.
“We started the Young Albanians Network to really bring ambitious Albanian Americans together so we could learn from one another, embrace our heritage, and also create a next generation of community leaders,” he says. It continues today.
He credits the older generation for making it work. “The overall Albanian community in Dallas was such a huge supporter of ours. They welcomed us into the broader leadership group and encouraged us and supported us. I thought it was such a beautiful example of how different generations can learn from one another, open doors for one another, and lift each other up.”
That heritage runs straight into how he leads. He anchors his team on Besa.
“The most important thing we can do is keep our promise and follow through and deliver on what we said we would do,” he says.
Albanian hospitality shows up too. “Any time someone walks into our company or joins our team, they are the most important person in the world in that moment. We want to celebrate them, we want to honor them, we want to lift them up, we want to make them feel like they are a part of something bigger.”
What He Wants the Diaspora to Hear
Asked what he wishes Albanians understood about the people Housing Connector serves, Shkëlqim gives the interview’s sharpest answer.
“They are us, just one bad year earlier.”
He walks through the parallel. Albanian families arrived with nothing, doubled up in apartments, worked jobs beneath their qualifications, and got a foothold. Then, over a generation, the story got retold as pure grit.
“That’s true, but it wasn’t only that,” he says. “Someone rented to us when our credit was nonexistent. Somebody hired us without a local résumé. A community took us in and provided connections.”
Then the line that lands: “The people we serve are asking for the same thing and being told no by a screening algorithm.”
His challenge to anyone in the community who talks about “those people” is to look back honestly at their own family’s first three years here. “The difference between us and them is usually not character. It’s who happened to say yes and give us a chance.”
Advice, and What’s Next
For young Albanian-Americans who want to build something that serves people, he starts by rejecting the premise that they must choose.
“Avoid the trap that those are opposites. I think that framing is often the reason so many good ideas and incredible people stay away from the social sector, because they feel torn between being able to do good and provide for their family. I fundamentally think you can do both.”
His second piece of advice is about access. Get into rooms above your pay grade, through mentors, through boards, or by asking your manager to walk you through their reasoning.
“Think about using your twenties as a way to accelerate your learning as much as possible, because you’re not going to be able to change your age or your years of experience. You can change the quantity and the quality of experience that you fit in during those years.”
The plan ahead is specific. Housing Connector aims to reach 15 cities and serve 50,000 people a year, on the way to supporting more than a million people over the next decade. The organization is also building products to give communities real-time visibility into everyone searching for housing and to use data to predict and prevent instability before it becomes homelessness.
“We’re on our way to a world where no unit is sitting vacant while there are people in need of a home.”
Connect with Shkëlqim Kelmendi
- Housing Connector: housingconnector.com
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kelmendi
Zbuloni më shumë profesionistë frymëzues shqiptarë në Drejtoria e Lidhjes ALB. Keni një histori tuajën? Dorëzojeni sot.
Pyetje të shpeshta
Who is Shkëlqim Kelmendi?
Shkëlqim Kelmendi is the founder and CEO of Housing Connector, a technology-led nonprofit based in Seattle. Born in Peja, Kosova, he came to the United States as a refugee in 1999 and resettled in Dallas. He studied economics and worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas before moving into housing.
How does Housing Connector work?
It partners with property owners and managers to connect vacant units with people who need housing now. The model addresses the supply side of the problem, not just the demand side, using technology and landlord relationships to move people into apartments that already exist.
How many people has Housing Connector housed?
More than 15,000 people have been housed, and another 20,000 have been supported in maintaining housing they already had. The organization operates across seven metropolitan markets and aims to reach 15 cities and 50,000 people a year.
What convinces a landlord to participate? Business value. Kelmendi’s team talks about filling vacancies, guaranteed rent, and stable communities rather than leading with the housing crisis. He describes the goal as win-win outcomes where owners solve a business problem while also contributing to a community.
What do people get wrong about homelessness?
Kelmendi says most people assume it is a story of personal failure. He points out that the largest group entering homelessness is people who ran out of money in an expensive market, and that the strongest predictor across cities is rent as a share of income.
What is the Young Albanians Network?
Kelmendi founded it in Dallas to bring ambitious Albanian-Americans together to learn from one another, embrace their heritage, and build a next generation of community leaders. It continues to operate today.
How has his Albanian heritage shaped his leadership?
He anchors his team on Besa, the principle of keeping your word and delivering what you promised. He also brings Albanian hospitality into the organization, treating anyone who walks in or joins the team as the most important person in the room.
What advice does he give young Albanian-Americans?
Do not accept that doing good and earning a living are opposites. Stay curious, and get into rooms where decisions are made above your current level, whether through mentors, board service, or asking leaders to explain their reasoning. Use your twenties to accelerate the quality of your experience.
Autor: Val Demiri
Valbona është redaktore dhe shkrimtare në ALB Connection, ku ajo mbulon njerëzit, bizneset dhe kulturën që formësojnë diasporën shqiptare. E diplomuar në gazetari në Universitetin e Ajovës, puna e saj përfshin profile të komunitetit, histori suksesi dhe reportazhe mbi jetën shqiptare në të gjithë SHBA-në, Evropën dhe më gjerë. Ajo tërhiqet nga historitë që festojnë arritjet e shqiptarëve dhe e mbajnë komunitetin të lidhur përtej kufijve.
