PWLEH Hub: Designing a System for All

Anderson Curtis is a Housing Equity Strategist with Community Solutions and the Policy Organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, where he mobilizes directly impacted leaders, advances public education, and builds people power around criminal legal reform and housing justice. Grounded in lived experience and driven by what he describes as the urgency of the moment, Anderson brings a deeply human, direct, and healing-centered approach to systems change. His work is shaped by his own housing journey, including 20 years cycling in and out of Connecticut’s prisons, and by the lessons he learned supporting others as a case manager, peer mentor, residential counselor, and community advocate. Anderson is especially passionate about ensuring that people with lived experience are not tokenized, but trusted, paid what they are worth, and given real power to shape programs and policy.

James Lee is a Housing Equity Strategist with Community Solutions whose work is rooted in lived expertise, community connection, and a deep belief that everyone matters. Based in Charlotte, James brings both vision and strategy to housing equity work, helping design pathways for people who want to grow into advocacy, consulting, and systems change leadership. He is especially focused on creating opportunities for directly impacted people to move from lived experience to lived expertise, and to be recognized as leaders in their own right. In addition to his work with Community Solutions, James is engaged in advocacy at multiple levels, from local organizing in Charlotte to federal policy work and congressional hearings through Results International.

Tyra Thomas is a Housing Equity Strategist with Community Solutions and a longtime community advocate in Minneapolis whose work is rooted in faith, accountability, and a deep commitment to dignity for all people. She describes her role as ensuring that housing is treated as a human right that is fair, non-discriminatory, equitable, and able to create the possibility of generational wealth. Tyra brings more than lived experience to this work. She brings lived expertise shaped by experiencing homelessness on and off for 20 years and by years of organizing alongside others directly impacted by housing injustice. Her current focus is financial accountability, especially challenging systems that claim to support Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities while exploiting them or withholding the resources people need to get and stay housed.

Jianna Hopkins-Israel is a Housing Equity Strategist whose work is rooted in connection, creativity, hospitality, and a deep belief in the complexity of people. Drawing from a love of art, culture, and human difference, Jianna approaches housing equity with both curiosity and care, creating spaces where people feel welcomed, seen, and valued. She understands hospitality not just as warmth, but as a practice of making room for people to show up fully as themselves. What grounds her in this work is the people it impacts and the power of being seen and heard. She is driven by the ability to offer others what she knows is often missing: genuine recognition, understanding, and respect. As a Housing Equity Strategist, Jianna acts as a liaison across different spaces of power, moving fluidly between community members and decision-makers. She sees the role not just as a title, but as access, an opportunity to open doors, build relationships, and create meaningful dialogue across systems that often feel disconnected.

Rachael Parker is a Housing Equity Strategist whose work is grounded in lived experience, cultural identity, and a deep commitment to people. A member of the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, she draws strength from her family, community, and spirituality, viewing her lived experience as training that shaped both her purpose and her values. Rachael approaches her role as a system changer, innovator, and disruptor, leading with authenticity and using her presence to challenge spaces that were not built with everyone in mind. Her work centers relationships and human connection, ensuring that people are seen, valued, and heard, and that spaces feel safe enough for people to fully show up as themselves. Her journey includes recovery from addiction, as well as navigating child welfare, carceral systems, and housing instability, all of which revealed critical gaps in support and reinforced her belief that homelessness is not an individual failing but a systems failure. She is especially focused on shifting narratives, reducing stigma, and advancing trauma-informed, human-centered approaches that honor the full complexity of people’s lives.