News and Updates

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Baltimore, MD and I lived in East Baltimore near John Hopkins hospital most of my youth and stayed in New York a couple of years as well.

Describe your job to us! 

I am the Director of Homeless Services & Strategies- My job is to find ways to make the system work more efficiently. There are gaps in the system that make it hard for a person that’s experiencing homelessness to navigate and my job/goal is to make sure that we can: 1 prevent homelessness before it begins; this will be a strategic plan that will allow us to think together as a community to plug the gaps that lead to homelessness and housing insecurities and make sure that we can find a way to help a person before they reach the system. 2. Make homeless rare, brief, and non-reoccurring. To make sure that the person who does hit the system find resources quickly and can navigate the system without anything getting in the way.    

Tell us about your career path. 

I started out as a truck driver years ago as I was finishing my undergrad and was in Psychology. My Aunt told me about human services and how I should look into helping others. I graduated and was offered a job running a group home. I was shortly after offered a job working as a counselor working with person with intellectual disabilities, which led to me being offered a job in Baltimore helping to run a foster care agency. During this time, there was a growing issue with youth experiencing homelessness in Baltimore and a company named Downtown Partnership of Baltimore was looking for someone who could work with young people. I was asked to apply for the position. During my interview I was introduced to the youths who were living in a plaza next to the office and they all knew who I was as they were former foster youths who the system had failed. I was able to recognize that there was a need for me in homeless services and I then took off running from there. I worked for the Mayor’s Office of Baltimore City next helping them to create and build out the homeless services office, which back then, homeless services fell under the office of human services. The rest is a very long list of jobs working in homeless services that led up to me coming to New Orleans.

What aspects of your job do you enjoy the most? 

I enjoy helping people get housed and seeing them put back together the things that were taken from them as society has stolen their ability to be housed by creating financial gaps that keep them from being able to live successfully.

What challenges do you find to be the greatest in your role? 

Getting people to understand that nobody chooses to be homeless. Not one person wakes up and says, “You know what, I will leave home today and live on the street because that’s just where I need to be!” Most of the folks are there for a reason and it’s usually not that easy to convey that message.

What is your favorite thing about New Orleans? 

People are my favorite everywhere I go! Everyone has a purpose whether they believe it or not. I think the people here make New Orleans this beautiful welcoming place and although some struggle, as often as most do, which is what makes us human! It’s those ideas that makes us all who we are and what we are!