2022 Funders Institute Speakers

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Last updated: 6/28/2022

	Ann Oliva Chief Executive Officer National Alliance to End Homelessness She/Her/Hers Ann Oliva is CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education, advocacy, and capacity building organization dedicated to ending homelessness in the United States. A career veteran of homelessness and housing policy, she is recognized as one of the foremost experts on homelessness in the nation. In her role, Ms. Oliva works closely with members of Congress and the Administration, as well as with officials and advocates at the state and local levels. As part of that role, she also collaborates closely with Alliance partners to educate the public on the real nature of homelessness and its solutions, and to advance known best practices within the homeless services sector. Ms. Oliva previously served as Vice President for Housing Policy for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and as a Senior Policy Advisor at the Corporation for Supportive Housing. Her distinguished career is also marked by a decade of federal service at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). During her 10-year tenure at HUD, Ms. Oliva successfully designed and implemented a variety of initiatives and programs, including homelessness prevention, supportive housing, and rapid re-housing programs, as well as a demonstration to end youth homelessness. In 2015, Ms. Oliva was named one of the 50 Most Influential Leaders in the department’s first 50 years, and was honored with the True Colors Fund’s True Leader Award. She was a finalist for a Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal (Sammie) in management excellence in 2011, and was part of an inter-agency team that won a Sammie for the team’s work on reducing Veteran homelessness in 2012.
	Barbara Poppe Founder and Principal Barbara Poppe and Associates She/Her/Hers Barbara Poppe is the founder of Barbara Poppe and Associates and the former executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. During her tenure, Opening Doors, the first comprehensive federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness was launched in June 2010. Ms. Poppe is a nationally recognized expert on homelessness and results-driven public-private partnerships. Barbara Poppe and Associates, established in 2014, is an independent consulting firm that develops the capacity of communities and organizations to tackle complex issues using a collaborative systems approach to achieves results and impact. Ms. Poppe is a frequent national, state, and local speaker on homelessness and serves on the national board of the Enterprise Community Partners and the national advisory board for the Center for Evidence-based Solution to Homelessness.
	Bianca Carter Program Officer Housing & Homelessness initiative at Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies She/her/hers Bianca Carter is the Program Officer for the Housing & Homelessness initiative at Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies. In this capacity, Bianca builds relationships with people and organizations in furtherance of Trinity’s commitment to end homelessness, promote housing stability, influence policymakers, and preserve extremely affordable housing units in New York City. Previously, Bianca was a Program Officer at The New York Women’s Foundation, where she managed a diverse portfolio of community-based organizations and technical assistance providers serving vulnerable women, girls, and gender-fluid individuals. Bianca has also served as Finance and Operations Assistant at the Arcus Foundation and at ABFE as Membership and Program Assistant. Bianca earned her BA at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia and her MS at the University of New Haven in West Haven, Connecticut. Bianca is native to and resides in New York City with her husband.
	Brook Fadley Fellow Housing Justice Narrative, Community Change She/her/hers Brook Fadley lives in Vancouver WA. She is a Non-profit Board Member, Resident Action Project (RAP) Steering Committee Member and Housing Justice Advocate. She serves those who are unhoused in her community through volunteering and work. She is a Legislative District Lead for the 49th and is a Housing Justice Narrative Fellow graduate. She has lived experience of being homeless, unstably housed and is currently living in affordable housing. Brook has a Master of Science in Social Administration-Community Practice (MSSA) and a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW). She cares for her six year old grandson and loves to be out in Nature.
	Casey Trupin Consultant Jeff and Tricia Raikes Family Office He/Him/His Casey Trupin is a consultant to the North Forty, the family office of Jeff and Tricia Raikes, co-founders of the Raikes Foundation. When not consulting with North Forty, Casey serves as the director of the Raikes Foundation’s youth homelessness strategy, which supports efforts in Washington state as well as national approaches to ensure that all youth have a safe and stable place to live. Prior to 2015, Trupin was the Directing Attorney for the Children and Youth Project at Columbia Legal Services, where he engaged in litigation, legislative advocacy and other systemic initiatives to improve outcomes for children, youth and adults experiencing homelessness, as well as those in foster care and the justice system. Casey has chaired a number of national initiatives related to children and youth, including the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Commission on Homelessness and Poverty and the ABA’s Children’s Rights Litigation Committee. He has authored and edited numerous books and articles on at-risk, homeless and foster children and, in 2011, was awarded the ABA’s Child Advocacy Award—Distinguished Lawyer. Trupin has worked on issues related to youth experiencing homelessness since 1994 in Seattle, California, Washington DC and throughout Latin America.
	Donald H. Whitehead Jr. Executive Director National Coalition for the Homeless He/Him/His Donald Hugh Whitehead Jr. is recognized as a leading expert on homelessness, having served as the Executive Director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, Assistant Director at St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore, Program Director at Ohio Valley Goodwill, Grant Manager at Goodwill of Greater Washington and Director of Communications at Greenpeace Ohio. Donald served two terms as President of the Board of Directors for the National Coalition for the Homeless, two terms on the Board of Directors for Faces and Voices of Recovery and two terms on the Georgetown Center for Cultural Competency.
	Jennifer Cossyleon Senior Policy and Advocacy Manager Community Change She/Her/Hers Jennifer has over a decade of community-engaged research experience including program evaluations, and policy informing investigations. As a former Graduate Research Fellow at the Center for Urban Research and Learning, she collaborated on many policy informing projects and publications including but not limited to work related to: community organizing, housing, and the criminal justice system. Currently, as a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow at Community Change, Jennifer serves on the New Deal for Housing Justice Advisory Committee, to advance racial equity within federal housing policy. As a Public Fellow, Jennifer draws from research to inform policy solutions to race and gender inequities within intersecting issue areas including: housing, poverty reduction, immigration reform, and economic justice. Translating research into accessible tools, she creates content for leadership trainings of grassroots organizers across the country, particularly focused on participatory action research and methods of creating healthier social movements that are kinship and healing centered. Before this, Jennifer was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Poverty and Inequality Research Lab (PIRL) at Johns Hopkins University (2018-2019). She co-directed a study of investment, divestment, and grassroots responses to neighborhood change across 16 different neighborhoods in Baltimore. She worked with Stefanie DeLuca, Kathryn Edin, Philip ME Garboden and Christine Jang (Principal Investigators). While at PIRL, she also helped to lead a study of property landlords in opportunity areas.
	Jennifer Olney Senior Program Officer Partnership to End Homelessness She/Her/Hers Jennifer joined the Greater Washington Community Foundation in November 2019. As the Senior Program Officer for the Partnership to End Homelessness, Jennifer brings together the public and private sectors to advance effective and innovative solutions to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring in DC. Prior to joining The Community Foundation, Jennifer worked as the Director of Networks and Programs at Funders Together to End Homelessness. In this role she worked with funders across the country dedicated to ending homelessness. In addition to her work leading local and national networks, she designed and facilitated communities of practice looking at intersectional issues and focused on collective action. Jennifer has spent her career working to end homelessness and is excited to be back in the District, where her career began. Jennifer earned her Bachelors degree in Communications from Clemson University and completed her Masters in Nonprofit Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania.
	Katy Miller Senior Regional Advisor United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) She/Her/Hers Katy Miller is on the National Initiatives Team at the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH). She works across the Western U.S. with states and communities to implement best practice solutions to prevent and end homelessness. She works with local leaders to bridge efforts happening on the ground to the policy work that is taking place in Washington D.C. through the Council’s 19 federal member agencies. Katy is based in Seattle, Washington and has worked to design and implement innovative solutions to homelessness for more than two decades.
	Kevin Solarte Owner-Worker Housing Justice Collective He/Him/His Kevin is a systems and policy analyst with more than a decade of experience designing and implementing cross-system initiatives focused on youth and family homelessness, affordable housing, child welfare, and domestic violence. Kevin has held a number of roles across non-profit and foundations all focused on activating communities to transform the system meant to serve them. At the federal level, he also served as a special assistant, in the Office of the Secretary at HUD, where he contributed to the federal interagency plan to prevent and end youth homelessness, the development of the Final Rule implementing the housing protection in the Violence Against Women Act, and the creation of strategies to improve the educational outcomes of children living in HUD assisted housing. Kevin holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s in Social Work from Illinois State University. He resides in New York City.
	Kimberly Waller Associate Commissioner Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) She/Her/Hers Kimberly A. Waller serves as the associate commissioner for the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) in the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, located within the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to joining the Biden Administration in December 2021, Waller served as a senior policy advisor in the District of Columbia's interagency council on homelessness, where she led the implementation of the District’s strategic plans to prevent and end youth and family homelessness. In this role, Waller applied an integrated, interagency approach to coordinating diverse systems impacting service delivery for children, youth and families. Waller previously worked as a policy advisor with FYSB where she led policy, legislative and regulatory initiatives on matters related to youth experiencing homelessness and domestic violence. She began her career in the United States Senate where she advised on health and human services initiatives. In addition to her federal experience, Waller also has extensive local and state level experience developing and implementing child welfare and human services policies. She served as a senior policy attorney with the Children’s Law Center in the District of Columbia and a fellow at the University of Michigan Law School. Waller holds a law degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Pittsburgh.
	LaMont Green Technical Assistance Collaborative (TAC) and WA State Lived Experience Coalition He/Him/His Dr. LaMont Green has nearly 20 years of experience helping local communities and governments identify and dismantle the persistent drivers of inequity in human services, homelessness, housing, behavioral health, and justice systems. He has led several community-driven initiatives centered on improving systems of care for complex health and historically disenfranchised populations by harnessing social innovation to address complex social problems. Dr. Green also brings expertise in Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) homelessness programs, inclusive human-centered design, continuous quality improvement, and implementation science. He is a nationally recognized racial equity leader and has spoken at numerous conferences to inspire action towards undoing institutional racism and other forms of oppression.
	Lindsay Knotts Managing Director, Impact Strategies TheCaseMade She/Her/Hers Lindsay (she/her) has more than a decade of subject matter expertise on ending homelessness and advancing housing justice. She is an expert in building consensus toward a shared vision, developing teams and partnerships, strategic planning, and communication. Before joining TheCaseMade, Lindsay served as a policy and content expert for The Housing Playbook Project for the Biden Administration. She also formerly served as policy director for the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, where she led the Council in developing Home Together: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, a roadmap for federal agencies, national partners, and communities. Lindsay is a trained Social Worker who started her career on the ground in rural West Virginia. She holds a Master of Social Work degree from West Virginia University and resides in Appalachia with her family.
	Lucky Michael Program Officer Arlene & Michael Rosen Foundation She/Her/Hers Lucky Michael (she/her) has worked for more than 15 years as an advocate and leader serving San Diegans experiencing homelessness and helping them gain access to treatment and housing. She believes love and unconditional positive regard are vital ingredients needed to promote community wellness and recovery. Lucky is committed to centering the voices of people with lived experiences and returning power to communities by advocating for the redistribution of wealth. Lucky is of mixed origin, a daughter of the African diaspora. She was raised in City Heights, San Diego, before the disruptive construction of interstate 15. A survivor of poverty and displacement, Lucky is hoping to create a world where everyone has access, stability, and a sense of belonging. Lucky speaks and dreams in three languages and frequently travels as a way to tap into the metaphysical traditions that inform indigenous cultures. Lucky is the Southern California Program Officer for the Arlene and Michael Rosen Foundation, a philanthropic foundation dedicated to the community work of racial justice, de-criminalization of mental health, substance use disorders, and homelessness.
	Marcella Middleton Executive Director A Way Home America She/Her/Hers Marcella Middleton based in Raleigh, North Carolina is a connector, motivator, and survivor. Determined to challenge the stereotype that “people mostly do what they see and not what they hear”, Marcella dedicated her life to traditional ideas of success such as school and a career. It is through personal and professional experiences that Marcella has gained the confidence and knowledge to challenge society’s ideals of success. Her evolution through consistent adversities has shifted her values which empowers greater self awareness and awareness of the world around her.  Marcella is a Black mom, daughter, sister, aunt, and friend fighting everyday for freedom, equity, and protection for herself and those just like her. Marcella is book smart, street smart, and everything in between. She has a degree in Social Work and has advocated for 15 years for youth in foster care and other nontraditional living arrangements. Marcella’s advocacy started in 2005 at an organization called Sayso where she advocated, mentored, and worked on behalf of youth that are or have been in substitute care. After being introduced to the work in 2005 she went on to continue work as a social worker, social work trainer, and member of Hope Centers Board of Directors. Her work on the National Forum on Homelessness empowered Marcella to center her lived experiences to help guide the transformation of the youth homelessness system.
	Marisol Bello Director Housing Narrative Lab She/her/hers Marisol Bello (she/her) has spent a career championing the stories and voices of people with lived experience, so they lead in creating the solutions that help every family thrive. First as a career journalist - most recently at USA TODAY - telling the stories of families working to make ends meet, and then in the nonprofit world, where she led narrative strategies to change hearts and minds about those living on the brink and move people to action. A first generation American from a Caribbean family full of colorful storytellers, Marisol is originally from the Bronx and yes, she is a Yankees fan. She's still on the East Coast, where she lives with her family and a pandemic puppy named Chloe.
	Mark Horvath Founder Invisible People He/His/His Mark Horvath has broken the mold. He’s not doing what makes sense. He is living out his passion and doing what burns deep inside of him. Mark has developed Invisible People to give a face and voice to homelessness, something he knows all too well since he once lived among them. His work is extremely innovative and his ingenious use of social media for storytelling is a model for both the corporate and not-for-profit worlds. After an extended period of unemployment due to the 2008 crash and losing everything facing homelessness a second time, Mark grabbed his camera and started to use social media to help tell the stories of people experiencing homelessness. With only a $45 start-up budget and lots of tenacity, Mark has used social media to reach the general public and change how people perceive a very serious social crisis that’s mostly ignored. Mark regularly works on cause campaigns with major brands like Hanes, Ford, Pepsi, General Motors, and Ritz Crackers, and has consulted for the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Los Angeles Police Department, Utah, the City of San Francisco, USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, and more. In addition, Mark has served as a guest lecturer at educational institutions across the globe including Geneva Forum on Social Change, UCLA, USC, NYU, and Syracuse University. In 2018, The Nonprofit Times included Mark in their 2018 Power & Influence Top 50 nonprofit executives.
	Mike Dickerson Co-Founder Ktown for All He/His/His Mike Dickerson is a co-founder of Ktown for All, an advocacy group in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. Ktown for All does outreach in Koreatown to build relationships with unhoused neighbors that inform its political advocacy.
	Phoebe VanCleefe Senior Program Officer True Colors United She/Her/Hers Phoebe VanCleefe, born and raised in Houston, Texas, comes to True Colors United from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with a background in direct service work and counseling for QTPOC youth and young adults experiencing housing instability. As a founding former member of the National Youth Forum on Homelessness, Phoebe has a wealth of experience in homelessness and sex work activism. Phoebe aspires to bring about a world in which Black trans and gender variant people are able to thrive and be protected holistically. Phoebe is also a singer-songwriter, and fills her downtime with creating captivating performance art within the Drag and Ballroom scenes of Philly, foraging, and supporting the work of Bantu Safe Haven as Board President.
	Roshan Bliss Principal Consultant Bliss Collaborations He/Him/His Roshan Bliss is an accomplished community organizer, policy advocate, trainer, and consultant based in Denver, Colorado with a serious-minded commitment to the modern-day struggle for abolition who has been a recognized leader in several social justice movements, from the international student movement to Denver's manifestations of Occupy Wall Street and the Movement for Black Lives. In 2015, Roshan helped co-found the Denver Justice Project – a local community organization dedicated to transforming law enforcement, ending mass incarceration, and seeking racial justice. In his 5 years as a lead organizer with the group, he helped craft and pass multiple ordinances to strengthen Denver's police accountability mechanisms, organized the coalition that abolished the exception for prison slavery from Colorado’s constitution, and he was a key leader in the community-driven effort to create Denver’s STAR program – the first non-law enforcement alternative emergency response in a major city focused on addressing crises involving mental health, substance use, and homelessness. As an abolitionist, Roshan whole-heartedly believes our society would be safer and more just without police, prisons, or the logic of punishment and human disposability they rely on, and he is invested in helping change makers and everyday people shift how we think about what it would take to achieve such a transformed, yet entirely possible world. While Roshan holds a BA in Philosophy and Religious Studies from Purdue University and his graduate studies in conflict resolution at the University of Denver focused on civic theory, participatory democracy, and dialogue across divides, it is his independent study of transformative justice, truth and reconciliation processes, and social change movements that have left him with real hope that alternative paths to creating safety, justice, accountability, and healing are possible if we are willing to work for them.
	Susan Thomas CEO Melville Charitable Trust She/Her/Hers Formerly the Melville Trust’s Program Director, Susan led the Melville Trust’s housing and racial equity efforts for five years, while managing a state and national portfolio of grants supporting solutions to homelessness. Susan has been instrumental in the creation of Funders for Housing and Opportunity, a national non-partisan, cross-sector funder collaborative focused on tackling the housing affordability crisis by supporting advocacy, narrative change work, and efforts to scale effective practices at the intersection of housing, health, economic mobility, and education. While at the Trust, she was also selected to participate in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Fellowship program targeting leaders working to improve outcomes for children, families, and communities. Prior to joining the Trust, Susan was Project Officer for Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta, where she was responsible for leading “Unsheltered No More!,” an initiative to dramatically reduce street homelessness that placed over 1,000 homeless men, women, and children into permanent housing. As the former president of Providence Consulting Group, she helped launch a statewide foundation to assist foster families, and co-chaired an effort for the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Atlanta Housing Authority to rehouse 420 families as part of a major HOPE VI redevelopment project. Susan is a former Vice President of Community Investment and Area Development at the United Way of Greater Atlanta. Prior to her nonprofit career, she worked for 15 years in the areas of accounting, management consulting, and strategic planning. She holds a Masters of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Bachelors of Science in Accounting from the University of Maryland.