A national network of funders supporting strategic, innovative, and effective solutions to homelessness

Funders Together Housing Partners Pre-Conference: Criminal Justice Reform and Homelessness

Posted by 65sc on March 22, 2016

In a meeting hosted by Funders Together Los Angeles,  Funders Together to End Homelessness and special guests were joined by members of regional funders networks and others, to learn about what is happening with criminal justice reform and homelessness/housing in Los Angeles. Attendees had a great opportunity to network with members, hear from expert panelists, and gain valuable insight about the vital work our members have been doing to prevent and end homelessness. 

 

Agenda

  • Networking lunch
  • Welcome from Bill Pitkin, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and Funders Together to End Homelessness Board Chair
  • Client Story – CSH Community Advocate
  • Keynote: Jackie Lacey, Los Angeles County District Attorney, who spearheaded a collaborative effort to divert people with mental illness from the criminal justice system
  • Roundtable Discussion
    • Moderator: Tim Silard, President - Rosenberg Foundation
    • Panelist: Yolanda Vera or Dhakshike Wickrema - LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas
    • Panelist: Dr. Mark Ghaly—LA County Department of Health Services
    • Panelist: Brian Ford—LA County Probation Department
    • Panelist: Lynne Lyman—Drug Policy Alliance
    • Panelist: Kimberley Guillemet—Office of Reentry, Mayor’s Office

Funders Together networks are each at various stages of growth, from gathering support to establish a network in their region, to releasing their third round of collaborative funding. Members of these networks will discuss best practices that they have identified, share specific and concrete solutions to challenges they face, and gain valuable insight and advice from their peers on governance, working with community stakeholders, and designing their network's approach to preventing and ending homelessness. Specific attention will be focused on methods and processes of alignment and collaboration. 

The learnings from this meeting will be shared nationally by Funders Together to encourage the formation and affiliation of regional funders networks, and to benefit and inform the work of all funders to prevent and end homelessness in their communities.

We joined Funders Together because we believe in the power of philanthropy to play a major role in ending homelessness, and we know we have much to learn from funders across the country.

-Christine Marge, Director of Housing and Financial Stability at United Way of Greater Los Angeles

I am thankful for the local partnerships here in the Pacific Northwest that we’ve been able to create and nurture thanks to the work of Funders Together. Having so many of the right players at the table makes our conversations – and all of our efforts – all the richer and more effective.

-David Wertheimer, Deputy Director at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children.

-President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964 State of the Union Address

Funders Together has given me a platform to engage the other funders in my community. Our local funding community has improved greatly to support housing first models and align of resources towards ending homelessness.

-Leslie Strnisha, Vice President at Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland

Our family foundation convenes local funders and key community stakeholders around strategies to end homelessness in Houston. Funders Together members have been invaluable mentors to us in this effort, traveling to our community to share their expertise and examples of best practices from around the nation.

-Nancy Frees Fountain, Managing Director at The Frees Foundation


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