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This database features alternative experts who are available to the press. Their authority derives from either lived experience or professional expertise or both. The current categories are Care, Disability, Drugs, Economics, History, Housing, Labor and Military with more to come. For additional information please visit the About page.

HOUSING

From tenant organizers to affordable housing advocates

Lisa K. Bates

Professor, Innovative Housing Policy, Portland (Oregon) State University’s Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Department of Black Studies

Bates’s scholarship focuses on housing and community development policy and planning. Her research and practice include deep engagements with community-based organizations working toward racial justice and housing rights, including Portland’s anti-displacement coalition. Bates also has an advisory partnership with the local government and leads the Evicted in Oregon team, which tracks eviction cases, evaluates public policy and uses community-based methods to develop insights and ideas about housing justice.

FOCUS: Housing
LANGUAGE: English
ORGANIZATION: Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University

Allie Cannington

Senior Manager, Advocacy and Organizing, The Kelsey

Cannington organizes people with disabilities at the local, state and national levels, centering on marginalized populations, including LGBTQIA+, Black, Indigenous, people of color, those living in poverty and youth with disabilities. At The Kelsey, a California-based organization that promotes the views of the disabled, she leads state and federal efforts to advance disability-forward housing solutions.

FOCUS: Housing
LANGUAGE: English
ORGANIZATION: The Kelsey

Fernando Martí

Community Architect and Housing Activist

San Francisco-based Martí, a licensed California architect, serves on the city’s Housing Stability Fund Oversight Board. His interests include affordable housing, economics of housing development, regional housing and segregation. He previously was co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, a San Francisco–focused coalition of community- and faith-based developers and justice advocates working for permanent, financially accessible housing under community control. Martí had built this network as a San Francisco renter since 1992, but in 2021 he was displaced from his longtime home after his landlord moved a relative into his apartment to circumvent rent control laws.

FOCUS: Housing
LANGUAGE: English, Spanish
ORGANIZATION: Self

Andreanecia M. Morris

Executive Director, HousingNOLA

Morris, who has spent her career working to create affordable housing in metro New Orleans, also has expertise in national topics ranging from the ways race and housing intersect to the racial wealth gap to the politics of real estate. Previously, Morris was an organizer for the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance (GNOHA) when it started in 2007 as a loose coalition of community development nonprofits and since its incorporation in 2012 she has served as GNOHA’s president. HousingNOLA is a public-private partnership working to solve the New Orleans affordable-housing crisis.

FOCUS: Housing
LANGUAGE: English
ORGANIZATION: HousingNOLA

Rasheedah Phillips

Director of Housing, PolicyLink

Phillips, an attorney, leads national advocacy efforts to support growing movements for tenants’ rights, housing and land use at PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing racial and economic equity. She previously served as managing attorney of housing policy at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia and has led housing policy campaigns that resulted in significant legislative changes, including the Renters’ Access Act. Additionally, Phillips has taught racial justice and housing-law skills throughout the country, previously serving as the senior advocate resources and training attorney at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law.

FOCUS: Housing
LANGUAGE: English
ORGANIZATION: PolicyLink