Mary Ann Romero

Mary Ann Romero has wanted to help people since she was a little girl — specifically, people like the ones in her community who needed someone to understand them, to hear them, to navigate a system that wasn't built with them in mind. She became an immigration attorney. She's been practicing since 1999.

For most of those 25 years, she didn't have a permanent home for her firm. She moved once when a building owner gave her notice. Three years later, she faced the same situation again. It was her teenage son who finally said what she hadn't let herself think: "Why don't you have your own building yet?"

She started looking into commercial loans. Traditional lenders couldn't help her — surprising for a business owner with decades of experience and solid financials behind her. One lender encouraged her to try DreamSpring. She did, with some skepticism. Her DreamSpring loan officer kept her going when she was ready to give up. "Even when I was like, this isn't going to work, he was very uplifting," she says. "'We are going to make this work.'" The commercial real estate loan closed in 2024.

She came to the building alone after the remodeling was done, when she finally had the keys. She cried. She made a video and thought of her son. "I could hear all those voices as I walked through."

Today, Mary Ann Romero & Associates sits on a corner of the historic Wells Park neighborhood — an address her clients, some of whom have followed her through four offices since 1999, now know is permanent. She tells them so directly. "This is permanent," she says. "Finally."

The office is designed to feel that way. Soothing candles, a welcoming space, staff who speak the language — literally and figuratively. Ninety percent of her clients are Spanish-speaking, coming from countries across Latin America. Many arrive carrying fear. "They want to know they're coming into a place where they're going to feel welcomed," Mary Ann says, "where they can come in and leave with answers and feel a sense of calm as they're walking out the door."

That calm has a ripple effect she has watched unfold over decades. She sees former clients running their own businesses, or she'll hear that someone has ended up in the state legislature, or working in a hospital. Families that started with one member putting down roots have grown into whole communities. "It is such a simple concept that carries so much weight," she says, "which is not living in fear. I do not live in fear, therefore I am willing to give."

The current immigration climate keeps her firm busy in ways she hadn't anticipated, with the law shifting faster than anyone can comfortably plan around. But the building is hers and her clients keep coming through the door.

For anyone who has heard nothing but no from traditional lenders, Mary Ann has a message. "Go ahead and try DreamSpring," she says. "You can get hope back."