Amanda Misiko Andere  

Chief Executive Officer  

Funders Together for Housing Justice 

She/Her 

Amanda Misiko Andere has spent over twenty years working in the nonprofit and public sector as a leader committed to racial and housing justice through advocacy for systemic change. Prior to joining Funders Together to End Homelessness as their CEO, she served as the CEO of Wider Opportunities for Women, a national advocacy organization. Currently, she serves on the board of Equity in the Center, Bainum Family Foundation, Philanthropy DMV, and Leadership Fairfax. She is the immediate past board chair of the United Philanthropy Forum. 

Amanda is a founding member and on the leadership team for the National Racial Equity Working Group on Homelessness and Housing and the National Coalition for Housing Justice. She also serves on the Leadership Council for the DC Partnership to End Homelessness and is an appointed member on the Fairfax County racial equity roundtable.  

Previously she served as an adjunct professor at George Mason University teaching Nonprofit Management, Executive Director of FACETS, and Vice President of Cornerstones; who have similar missions of preventing and ending homelessness and breaking the cycle of poverty in Fairfax County.

Jennifer Angarita 

Deputy Director 

Fund for Housing & Opportunity  

She/Her 

Jennifer brings over a decade of experience in community organizing, community development, labor, and philanthropy to the Fund for Housing and Opportunity (FHO). Prior to joining FHO, she served as a Loan Fund Officer for BlueHub Capital, a national nonprofit Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI) where she led strategic initiatives and managed a diverse portfolio of social impact loans. Previously, she was the National Worker Center Coordinator at the AFL-CIO, where she worked to develop and deepen strategic partnerships between worker centers and organized labor. Her diverse social sector experience includes research and consulting engagements with the City of Cambridge, United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, and Peace First. She has served as an Opportunity Finance Fellow, a New Leaders Council Fellow, and a Sheila C. Johnson Fellow at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership. Currently, she serves on the board of The Philanthropy Connection. Jennifer holds a bachelor’s degree with honors from Yale University and a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. 

Peggy Bailey 

Executive Vice President for Policy and Program Development 

Vice President for Housing and Income Security 

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities

She/Her

Peggy Bailey is the Executive Vice President for Policy and Program Development. She also currently serves as Vice President for Housing and Income Security. In her role as EVP, she guides the Center’s work to strengthen, reform, and better resource federal and state programs oriented to helping all people meet basic needs like housing, health, and nutrition. As VP for Housing and Income Security, Bailey oversees the Center’s work to protect and expand access to affordable housing and income assistance through programs like the Housing Choice Vouchers, Public Housing, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Child Support.  

Throughout her career, she has helped build connections between housing, health, nutrition, child welfare, and other systems of care. Bailey has worked to advance delivery of government services and supports that center people and systems that make resources easier to access and flexible enough to meet people’s needs. Her work to improve programs also includes recognizing the ways in which racism and discrimination have created the inequities that persist today and must be addressed to achieve a country where all people thrive.  

She first joined the Center in 2016 as the director of “Connecting the Dots: Bridging Systems for Better Health,” a Center initiative that identified opportunities to strengthen the link between housing and health policy. She then served as the Center’s VP for Housing Policy from 2019 to 2021. 

Prior to rejoining the Center, Bailey served in the Biden-Harris Administration as the Senior Advisor on Rental Assistance to HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. She also served as the Director of Health and Housing Integration for the Corporation for Supportive Housing, where she focused on Medicaid expansion and finding sustainable funding sources for the services that people with histories of homelessness and chronic health conditions need to maintain their housing. She also worked for the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, and the City of Rockwall, Texas. 

Bailey holds a B.A. in Government from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Dallas. 

Kristina Gray-Akpa  

Senior Program Officer

Horizon Foundation 

She/Her 

Kristina leads the Foundation’s grantmaking efforts to advance housing justice through organizing, advocacy and coalition building. She joined the Horizon team in 2024 and works in partnership with community to remove barriers to obtaining and sustaining affordable, high-quality rental housing and home ownership. Kristina is deeply committed to dismantling racial inequities and fostering healthy communities by shifting power, building solidarity and taking collective action. Outside of work, Kristina loves visiting museums, traveling with her family, leading antiracism workshops for parents and using culture to seed change as a writer, performer and arts activist. 

Kassandra Frederique

Executive Director

Drug Policy Alliance   

She/Her 

Kassandra Frederique is the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national nonprofit that works to end the war on drugs—which has disproportionately harmed Black, Latinx, Indigenous, immigrant, and LGBTQ communities—and build alternatives grounded in science, compassion, health, and human rights. During her time at DPA, Frederique has built and led innovative campaigns around policing, the overdose crisis, and marijuana legalization—each with a consistent racial justice focus. Her advocacy, and all of the Drug Policy Alliance’s work, lies at the intersection of health, equity, autonomy, and justice. 

Emily Krisciunas

Executive Director

Chicago Funders Together to End Homelessness

She/Her  

Thoughtful, collaborative leader with a unique blend of nonprofit, government, and philanthropy experience. Writer, project manager, and policymaker with 15 years of experience at youth-serving organizations and two mayoral administrations with the City of Chicago. Previously Deputy Policy Director with the Mayor’s Office, focused on housing, homelessness, the 2020 Census, and the Mayor’s Office Fellows Program. Currently serving as Executive Director of Chicago Funders Together to End Homelessness, a collaborative of 40 funders working towards housing justice in the Chicago region. 

Kate Levin Markel

President

McGregor Fund

She/Her

Kate Levin Markel joined the McGregor Fund in 2001 as program officer, became program director in 2010 and was named president in 2015. A Detroit native, Kate’s prior work included time in the private sector in New York, serving on the staff of Detroit Mayor Dennis W. Archer, and consulting to southeast Michigan foundations.

Ann Oliva

Chief Executive Officer

National Alliance to End Homelessness

She/Her

Ann Oliva is CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. 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). 

Jennifer Olney

Program Director

Partnership to End Homelessness 

She/Her 

Jennifer joined the Greater Washington Community Foundation in November 2019. As the Program Director 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. 

Shameka Parrish-Wright  

Executive Director  

Vocal-KY 

She/They

Councilwoman Parrish-Wright was elected to serve District 3 in November 2023. 

In 2025, she serves as the Vice Chair of the Public Works Committee. She also serves as a member of Budget, Planning & Zoning, and Public Safety Committees. 

Shameka Parrish-Wright is the Executive Director of VOCAL-KY – an organization launched on June 19, 2022 dedicated to ending AIDS, the failed drug war, mass incarceration and homelessness by building the political power of people directly impacted by those issues, which includes herself. She was driven to seek this office because she passionately believes people like herself, who have experienced poverty and homelessness, need representation the most. 

She has been married eighteen years and is the mother of six and grandmother of four. With over 25 years of community organizing and social justice work, Shameka is a proven connector and bridge builder that works across lines of difference to support better progressive policies that improve and save lives. Her unshakable commitment to improving lives shapes the policies she drafts and sponsors. 

Shameka has many certifications, years of consulting and training experiences. She attended the University of Louisville and has a degree in Human Services. She was the Co-Chair of the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression during the Justice for Breonna Taylor movement, which helped her be a valuable resource during Louisville's most recent civil rights movement. She now serves as an advisor to KAARPR. She was appointed to the Human Relations Commission by the Mayor of Louisville in 2008 and served two terms. 

Additionally, Shameka has held, and still holds, leadership positions with many organizations such as: Kentucky Jobs with Justice, La Casita Center Board, The Coalition for The Homeless, The Anne & Carl Braden Memorial Center, Louisville Books to Prisoners Program, Justice Now, The Sowers of Justice Network, Feed Louisville and The Louisville Family Justice Advocates, the Kentucky Reproductive Freedom PAC and the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research. All of her work is dedicated to ending racist practices and dismantling poverty.

Rachel Sherman 

Wilson Foundation

Executive Director

She/Her

Rachel Sherman joined the foundation in 2019 in an operations role until her elevation to Executive Director in 2023. As ED, Rachel manages all day-to-day foundation activities, including community relationships, grantmaking, communications, board and committee support, family engagement, and operations/finance. Under her leadership, the foundation has leaned in more on trust-based, catalytic, and equitable philanthropic principles and has transitioned a traditional investment portfolio to one invested for impact and values-alignment. Prior to joining the Foundation, Rachel served as the Vice President of Client Service at a firm providing integrated wealth management services, including philanthropic support. Rachel started her career in Boston as an attorney.

Rachel holds a B.S. from Cornell University in Industrial Relations and a law degree from Harvard Law School. She has completed an intensive managerial leadership training course with the Center for Creative Leadership in Colorado Springs. In 2024, Rachel received a Women of Distinction Award from N.Y.S. District 138, Assemblymember Bronson’s office.

Rachel spends her free time volunteering for organizations that assist refugees, children, and those experiencing homelessness. She finds joy in raising her three determined teenagers, tending to her vegetables and flowers in the community garden, and attempting to train her rescue dog. Rachel is supported by her partner and husband of 25 years, Matt.

Akshara Vivekananthan

Program Officer

HealthSpark Foundation

She/Her

Akshara Vivekananthan is a social impact professional with nearly a decade of experience advancing equity through community-centered policy, philanthropy, and advocacy. Since July 2023, she has served as Program Officer at HealthSpark Foundation, where she leads strategic grantmaking and communications to achieve healthy, equitable, and hopeful communities throughout Montgomery County, PA. Her work focuses on funding initiatives that address community power, leadership, and solutions. She also designs and facilitates convenings that elevate community voice and catalyze collective action.Akshara began her career focused on expanding access to high quality education, working alongside legislators, nonprofits, and faith leaders to address systemic barriers. One of her proudest moments was securing federal funding to grow a grassroots initiative focused on improving educational outcomes.She holds a Master’s in International Public Service from DePaul University and a Bachelor’s in Communications and Psychology from Austin College. A proud daughter of Tamil immigrants, Akshara is a committed advocate for racial and social justice, grounded in the belief that “community knows best.”

Deborah Vo

Program Officer, Strategy & Initiatives 

Rasmuson Foundation 

She/Her

Deborah Vo joined Rasmuson Foundation in January 2021 as a program officer on the Program Team, the Foundation’s grantmaking team, and in July 2023 moved into a new role shaping strategic planning and proactive grantmaking.

She is a lifelong Alaskan whose expertise extends from tribal governance to health care to community development. She most recently worked as special assistant for rural affairs to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. She is serving as one of seven commissioners on the U.S. Arctic Research Commission under an appointment by President Biden.

Deborah was born and raised in St. Mary’s on the Lower Yukon River, the youngest of 10 siblings. She started her career as her hometown’s first female city manager. She also served as a tribal administrator, a health planner facilitating tribal management of statewide Alaska Native health services, and executive director of the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, a former statewide advocacy group for Alaska’s 229 federally recognized tribes. Deborah also worked for two companies in the Community Development Quota program that channels investments from fisheries into jobs, education and other benefits in 65 Western Alaska communities. She managed rural energy planning for the Alaska Energy Authority.

During her nearly seven years in Murkowski’s office, Deborah represented the senator at gatherings, advised her on rural issues and accompanied her on rural travel. She holds a Master of Business Administration from Alaska Pacific University. Deborah lives in Anchorage, where she is surrounded by her five children and five grandchildren.

Renee M. Willis 

President & Chief Executive Officer

National Low Income Housing Coalition 

She/Her

Renee M. Willis is the President and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a membership organization dedicated to achieving racially and socially equitable public policy that ensures people with the lowest incomes have quality homes that are accessible and affordable in communities of their choice. She also leads NLIHC’s intensified engagement of renters with low incomes and people with lived experience with homelessness and housing instability. Renee previously served as NLIHC's Senior Vice President for Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. In this role, Renee worked to ensure that NLIHC’s commitment to racial equity, diversity, and inclusion is woven through its culture, policies, programs, and practices. From 2015 to 2021, Renee served as NLIHC’s Vice President for Field and Communications. In 2020, she served as a fellow with the Shriver Center’s Racial Justice Institute and joined a network of advocates working on race equity issues across the country.