NEW YORK CITY-Nearly 23 years ago, Rafael Cestero—a country boy from Upstate New York—remembers leaving home, getting a bag a subway tokens and heading straight to the South Bronx. “I went to a 17-unit, 100% formerly homeless housing development called Deacon Juan Santos Plaza,” he says, recalling his first days as an intern at the Enterprise Foundation, now known as Enterprise Community Partners. In that moment, he discovered his passion.

“I participated in helping those 17 families move in to these apartments, and it was really that moment when I was bitten with the affordable housing bug,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “To see people who had been spending time in shelters and kids who had never had their own room, helping them move into their apartments was truly a remarkable thing.”

Cestero, now 43, has been named by the Community Preservation Corp.’s Board of Directors to serve as president and CEO of the non-profit organization and its for-profit development subsidiary, CPC Resources, Inc. He succeeds Michael Lappin, who announced his retirement last November after leading the company for 31 years.