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Born in the Washington Heights section of New York City, Jeffrey Sánchez came to Boston as a small child with his mother Maria and sister Marlene to the community he currently represents in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

He proudly discusses his growing up in the Mission Main - a formerly dilapidated HUD-regulated housing development in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood. A graduate of the Boston Public Schools, Jeffrey's experience includes his work as an investment banker and as a residential counselor in an overnight shelter for youth in San Diego, California. He has also served in various capacities for the City of Boston.

Jeffrey served as the Community Liaison to the Jamaica Plain and Mission Hill neighborhoods and the Hispanic community citywide for Mayor Thomas M. Menino. He led the City's efforts to count the population of Boston for Census 2000 and served as Director of Planning at the Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation. He has also served as a consultant to the Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools.

As a State Representative in the Massachusetts legislature, Jeffrey's work and interests are widespread. He focuses his efforts in seeking to address immediate challenges and shortcomings for those people who are disengaged and disenfranchised from government and their community. Jeffrey looks at his work holistically, from potholes to street lights to employment and educational opportunities for those who most are most in need. Constantly seeking innovative approaches to his community's most pressing concerns, Jeffrey is consistently engaged in seeking opportunities on behalf of his community within the paradigm of institutional expansion in Boston's world renowned Longwood Medical area.

Jeffrey's legislative efforts include advocating for the creation of a statewide employer health care beneficiary report, which would help track employer usage of public health care resources in Massachusetts. He has also has worked to establish a statewide asthma registry system, and has fought for increased funding for summer jobs for youth. As an advocate for the elderly, Jeffrey worked to preserve Prescription Advantage, one of the nationŐs most successful senior pharmacy programs, and south the removal of enrollment caps from several MassHealth programs, an initiative which was, in part, incorporated in the House and Senate's recent Health Care Reform Package.

As an ardent advocate for affordable housing, Jeffrey has launched numerous legislative and budgetary initiatives designed to both spur the development of affordable housing statewide as well as boost the affordability of projects in the pipeline, specifically in terms of creating new affordable homeownership opportunities for low-income first-time homebuyers. He has been a constant advocate for rental assistance initiatives, emergeny shelter funding, and for increase funding to assist the state's public housing authorities to make necessary maintenance and safety repairs for the benefit of their residents.

In his role as Vice Chairman for the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, Jeffrey is constantly engaged in workforce development and job creation efforts on both a local and state level. In 2005, he participated in a multi-city Job Growth Listening Tour where he heard testimony from hundreds of individuals representing all aspects of the Commonwealth's diverse economy, the input from which he used in helping to craft a major economic stimulus and job creation bill.

He lives in Jamaica Plain with his wife, Brenda.