Philadelphia’s Donna Bullock will replace Sister Mary Scullion as Project HOME’s leader

Donna Bullock, a Democratic state legislator who lives in Strawberry Mansion and grew up sleeping on couches in other people’s houses, will become CEO of Project HOME, the nationally renowned anti-homelessness nonprofit.

Bullock, 45, will take over for Sister Mary Scullion, the organization’s president and executive director, as well as for Joan Dawson McConnon, the associate executive director. Both women founded Project HOME in 1989, growing it from a winter shelter in South Philadelphia where volunteers washed dishes in a washing machine to a wide-reaching institution with 1,000 units of housing in 19 residences across the city.

The nonprofit has a $52 million operating budget, one million square feet of real estate, dozens of programs, and a staff of more than 400 that has helped countless people in need find homes, improve their health, become educated, and get jobs.

“I’m inspired by Sister Mary and Joan,” said Bullock, an attorney who once worked as special assistant and counsel to Philadelphia City Council President Darrell Clarke. “I take their lives’ work very seriously. Their view that we don’t have the privilege of being comfortable if there’s a person living on the streets tonight — that ‘None of us are home until all of us are home,’ as their motto says — really resonates with me.”

Bullock has not set a date for her official start, saying only that it will be some time in the summer. Neither has she announced when she’ll resign her seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where she’s served the 195th District since 2015. Her district includes neighborhoods in North Philadelphia as well as the area around the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Scullion, 71, praised Bullock as a woman of “many talents and experiences that have prepared her to take on this important leadership role.”

She added, “Donna is someone who’s experienced homelessness when she was young. She has a real passion, drive, and heart for this work, born out of her lived experience.

“She’s well-suited and prepared to take Project HOME into the future.”

Finding a new leader for Project HOME wasn’t easy, said Estelle Richman, chair of the nonprofit’s board of trustees. Since last August, the board’s search committee sorted through a list of 206 applicants.

“We weren’t fooling ourselves” Richman said. “There wasn’t a replacement for icons who founded and grew the organization. But we thought we could get pretty close and we believe we have.”

Few people, after all, could match Scullion’s resume: She was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most-influential people in 2009, along with Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey. She’s won the University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, American Catholicism’s highest honor. Scullion has consulted with a pope (Francis), a king (Charles), top U.S. leaders, and, of course, a rock star — Jon Bon Jovi, who has given millions to Project HOME.

Still, Richman said, she’s proud of the board’s ultimate choice: “Donna is collaborative, sensitive … [and possesses] a deep understanding of the dynamics of our city and the needs of the people we serve.”

Scullion will lead transition efforts through Dec. 31, while McConnon will stay on through July 31. Both will consult on Project HOME’s Estadt-Lubert Collaborative for Housing and Recovery, a collaborative focusing on the opioid epidemic.

Born an only child in New Brunswick, N.J., Bullock spent the first year of her life in foster care.

As she grew, her family moved from house to house — sometimes living with a grandmother, and on another occasion sleeping in the living room of an elderly woman who was being cared for by Bullock’s mother.

“I even remember episodes of us escaping eviction,” she said. At some point, Bullock said, her mother secured a housing voucher that helped provide a modicum of stability.

Bullock said there was one particular place that helped anchor her: Elijah’s Promise, a New Brunswick soup kitchen.

“We visited to receive meals and it became a significant part of my life, from age 7 to high school,” Bullock said. “I ate with people who were part of the street homelessness population who I always considered to be family.”

The Elijah’s Promise group would check Bullock’s report cards and celebrate her academic achievements. Bullock also volunteered at the soup kitchen to repay the largesse, and joined its board when she was in college.

“Growing up in that space informed my own decision making, and my character,” Bullock said.

A gifted student, Bullock once considered being a United Nations interpreter, having studied Japanese, Latin, and other languages in school. She said she was drawn to leadership positions at a young age, helping to start her school’s first girls’ soccer team, then becoming president of the local YWCA teens club.

Bullock went on to Rutgers University, where she became president of a scholarship organization for Black and Latino students. She graduated in 2000 with a degree in administration of justice. She then attended the Temple University Beasley School of Law, earning her degree in 2003.

She worked for four years at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, starting in 2003, where she represented people who ran home-based child-care programs — as her mother eventually did — to move themselves out of poverty. Bullock also worked for a time at the law firm of Laura Solomon & Associates, with offices in Ardmore.

Starting in 2011 in Clarke’s office, Bullock focused on affordable housing.

Winning a seat in the state legislature in 2015, Bullock was the chair of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus from 2021 to 2023. She has worked on criminal justice reform, LGBTQ equality, and student debt, among other issues.

In her law school days, Bullock met Otis Bullock Jr., a kindred spirit who shared her passion for service. “We fell in love even though I was in denial,” Bullock recalled. “I didn’t want to have a boyfriend. I’d just moved to Philly and wanted to be single for a while.”

They would attend community meetings as dates. “Yes, we nerded out on how to use our law degrees to lift others,” she said. After marrying, the couple bought a house in Strawberry Mansion.

“Otis said to me, ‘I’m from North Philly, but you’re from Jersey,’” Bullock said. “‘I don’t know if you could hang up here.’

“I told him, ‘I got it.’”

The Bullocks have two sons: Malcolm, 16, and Xavier, 13.

Otis Bullock, 45, is executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Community Alliance, a multiservice nonprofit.

As news of her appointment spreads, Bullock has been accumulating kudos by those who know her: “I have a lot of affection for her,” said Kelvin Jeremiah, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Housing Authority. “Donna will thrive and has my complete confidence.”

And, in a statement, Gov. Josh Shapiro said, “I can think of no one better to build on their [Scullion’s and McConnon’s] legacy, and expand their impact, than Donna Bullock.

“Project HOME is in good hands.”