The Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County will host State of Homelessness on April 27, 2023.

The half-day conference will bring together partners of The Way Home, community members, and stakeholders to learn from local and national experts in the homeless response system.

The Day at a Glance

Our own Ashlie Young, manager of landlord engagement and performance artist, will return as this year’s Master of Ceremonies.

Coalition for the Homeless Vice Chair Chris Hanslik will kick things off at 9 a.m. with opening remarks. Then, Thao Costis of Harris County Community Services Department, will offer a reflection of the last ten years of The Way Home.

Next, Kelly Young of Career & Recovery Resources, Mercedes Sanchez of Harris County Precinct 2, and Sgt Theodore Perez of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office will offer a talk on Employ2Empower. What began as a 6 month pilot program in Precinct 2, Employ2Empower now encompasses all of Harris County, providing low-barrier employment opportunities to people experiencing homelessness.

Marc Eichenbaum of Mayor Sylvester Turner’s office, James Gonzalez of the CFTH, and Preston Witt of Harmony House will then take the stage to talk about the City’s housing navigation center, a new facility designed to provide people with a consistent, safe, and stable location to stay while they transition from homelessness to housing.

The Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) Panel will be moderated by our own Stefanie Quintela. Panelists will include Shun Johnson of TLC Health & Wellness, Joe Fuentes of Spring Branch Community Health Center, Youth Action Board Representative Kenny Easley, and Juliet Stipeche of Gulf Coast Workforce Board. The YHDP is a new initiative to prevent and end youth homelessness in our community.

The keynote address will begin just before noon, after a break for lunch. We are so thrilled to welcome this year’s keynote speaker, Michael Kimmelman, author of The New York Times article “How Houston Moved 25,000 People From the Streets into Homes of Their Own," who will tell us about his observations about Houston and the reaction to his article since it was published.

After the keynote, singers Cecila Duarte, Alejandro Magallón, Bin Yu Sanford, and Emily Treigle will perform excerpts from Houston Grand Opera’s Another City, followed by a Q&A with them and Jeremy Johnson and Alisa Magallón about their experience bringing the opera to life.  

Closing out the day, CFTH Vice President Sara Martinez will look to the next ten years of The Way Home.

If you are unable to attend the conference but would still like to support the efforts of Houston's homeless response system, please consider donating to the Coalition.