Our Staff

Arif Ullah

Executive Director

Arif is a social and environmental justice advocate, grassroots urban planner, and community activist with more than 20 years of experience in designing and managing community development programs, establishing diverse alliances, and co-creating campaign strategies around local, state, and national issues. 

Prior to joining South Bronx Unite, Arif was Director of Programs at an organization that supported hundreds of grassroots groups every year in their self-determined efforts to improve the quality of life in under-resourced neighborhoods across NYC. Before that, he worked as an immigrants’ rights advocate with American Friends Service Committee where he helped establish a local alliance of immigrant advocates, contributed to a national campaign for immigration reform, and designed and led workshops on community organizing. He currently serves on the NY-NJ Harbor and Estuary Program Management Committee and has been on the boards of ioby, Farm School NYC, and NY Immigration Coalition. He is a co-founder of Bangladeshi Americans for Political Progress and a core member of Malcolm X Community Garden. Arif graduated from Hunter College and has a Master’s in Public Policy from Duke University. In his free time, he grows food and keeps honeybees at his community garden.

Arif believes in the power of frontline communities and he is committed to building systems that support their health, creativity, wisdom, and leadership.

Leslie Vasquez

Clean Air Project Organizer

Leslie is a passionate environmental justice advocate that strives to make a difference in the world. As an immigrant from the Dominican Republic and as a resident of the Bronx, she has witnessed many environmental/social injustices that drive her passion to help better distribute resources to marginalized communities in the best way she can. As the Clean Air Program Coordinator, she is working with a cohort of BIPOC led organizations across the country to help craft rules that the EPA can adopt for the transportation and power sectors. She is also supporting South Bronx Unite’s local campaigns to end environmental injustices. Leslie graduated from The City College of New York at CUNY, where she was a double major in international public policy and political science, and had a minor in economics. 

Prior to becoming a Program Coordinator at South Bronx Unite, she interned at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) where she worked to decrease the State’s fossil fuel energy dependence and support the goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. She expanded her environmental justice work as an intern at the White House Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ) by providing nonprofits, BIPOC and women led businesses, and grassroots organizations with technical assistance to be able to access grants available through the Infrastructure Law. She also supported efforts to include in discussions the voices of organizations that serve low-income and BIPOC communities. In her free time, she loves to cook, take bike rides in nature, and jam to really loud music.

Matthew Shore

Green Space Equity & Community Land Trust Organizer

Matthew is an embedded planner, organizer and policy enthusiast inspired by grassroots movements focused on community stewardship, health and racial justice. As a Bronxite originally from Bedford Park, he’s active in Bronx-based efforts that aim to upend extractive planning and development in exchange for long-term community-led solutions that build our right to self determination boroughwide, including the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition’s campaign for shared ownership of the Kingsbridge Armory and the Bronx-Wide Plan.

Prior to becoming a Program Organizer at South Bronx Unite, he supported anti-displacement organizing for small businesses and learned from the City’s oldest CLT as an ANHD Graduate Fellow for Cooper Square Committee. He also helped kickstart efforts to build an open space equity coalition between several nonprofits in Brooklyn CB1. He also provided research and administrative support for the passage of the CLCPA while working as an Environmental and Urban Policy Analyst for the NYS Assembly.

He obtained his B.A. in Public Policy from SUNY Albany, and obtained a M.S. Urban Planning degree from Columbia University in May 2023 where he critically engaged with the City’s work regarding climate justice, flooding resilience, rezoning, affordable housing, and street vending in frontline communities in the Bronx and Harlem. When free, he enjoys parks, soccer, discovering international movies and chats with his cats!

Devan Cronshaw

Director of Special Projects

Devan is an urban planner advocating for capital projects and policy initiatives that are led by the community, for the community. He has over 7 years of experience in managing affordable housing and community facility real estate development. Originally from Treaty 1 territory in what is now called Canada, Devan has lived in East Harlem for three years. He is also an active Board Member of Community Board 11 serving East Harlem.

Prior to joining South Bronx Unite, Devan supported the development of several community capital projects in NYC as a Senior Project Manager with Hester Street. He also developed policy change initiatives forwarding the build-out of a community control ecosystem. Earlier in his career, he worked to develop over $100 million in affordable housing in Canada with an Indigenous-rooted nonprofit housing development firm.

Devan earned a Master of Community Planning degree from Vancouver Island University, where he researched the process and outcomes of waterfront development. This included the completion of an international research scholarship in Belize.