Tel: 312.362.8834
Email: info at ighomelessness.org
RESEARCH STEERING COMMITTEE
Jeremy Swain
CEO | Thames Reach (Co-Chair)
employment programmes. The organisation employs around 300 staff and 150 volunteers. 68 members of the salaried work-force are former homeless people. In 2014, Thames Reach achieved a top 100 ranking on the Sunday Times best not-for-profit organisations to work for list.
Jeremy is deputy chair of the London Housing Foundation which funds a range of different homelessness-related initiatives and a member of the London Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Group, tasked with reducing rough sleeping in the capital. He is also a board member of Homeless Link, the national body for homelessness organisations working directly with homeless people in England.
He is an influential magazine columnist where he covers a range of issues related to homelessness, social exclusion and the work of the not-for-profit sector and has been twice short-listed for the Professional Publishers’ Association Business Columnist of the Year Award.
Jeremy Swain began working with homeless people in 1980, starting as a volunteer. After working in a variety of paid roles including as a street outreach worker he progressed to be Chief Executive of Thames Reach.
Thames Reach provides a range of services to over 7,000 people every year including street outreach, specialist accommodation for people with substance misuse and mental health issues, tenancy support projects, day services and
Nan Roman
President | National Alliance to End Homelessness (Co-Chair)
Nan Roman is President and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education, advocacy, and capacity-building organization. She is a leading national voice on the issue of homelessness. Under her guidance, the Alliance has successfully identified and promoted innovative strategies for ending homelessness that have been adopted by communities across the country. In her role, Ms. Roman works closely with members of Congress and the Administration, as well as with officials and advocates at the state and local levels. She collaborates with Alliance partners to educate the public about the real nature of homelessness and effective solutions. She has researched and written on the issue of homelessness, regularly speaks at events around the country, and frequently serves as an expert on the issue for the media.
Her unique perspective on homelessness and its solutions comes from more than 20 years of local and national experience in the areas of poverty and community-based organizations.
Dennis P. Culhane
Professor of Social Policy | University of Pennsylvania
Dennis Culhane is the Dana and Andrew Stone Professor of Social Policy at the School of Social Policy and Practice at The University of Pennsylvania, a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Population Studies, and the Director of Research for the National Center on Homelessness among Veterans at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. Culhane is a nationally recognized social science researcher with primary expertise in the field of homelessness. He is a leader in the
integration of administrative data for research and directs the Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy initiative, a MacArthur-funded project to promote the development of integrated database systems by state and local governments for policy analysis and systems reform.
His homelessness work has positioned him as an early innovator in the use of administrative data for research and policy analysis, particularly for populations and program impacts which are difficult to assess and track. Culhane’s work has resulted in federal legislation requiring all cities and states to develop administrative data systems for tracking homeless services in order to receive HUD funding. His work has also been instrumental in a national shift in how cities address chronic homelessness and family homelessness. Culhane’s recent research includes studies of the ageing homeless population and vulnerable youth and young adults, including those transitioning from foster care, juvenile justice, and residential treatment services.
Suzanne Fitzpatrick
Professor | Heriot-Watt University
Suzanne Fitzpatrick completed her PhD on youth homelessness at the University of Glasgow in 1998. She subsequently held a number of posts in the Department of Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow, including ESRC Research Fellow in Housing and Social Exclusion and, latterly, Lecturer in Housing and Social Policy.
From 2003 to 2010 Suzanne was Joseph Rowntree Professor of Housing Policy and Director of the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York. Suzanne took up her Research Professorship in Housing and Social Policy at Heriot-Watt University in July 2010. Suzanne specializes in research on homelessness and housing exclusion, and much of her work has an international comparative dimension. Suzanne was until recently Editor of the International Journal of Housing Policy.
Stephen Gaetz
Professor | York University
Stephen Gaetz is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at York University in Toronto. As Director of the Canadian Observatory on Homeless and the Homeless Hub, Stephen Gaetz is committed to increasing the impact of research on homelessness policy, planning and practice, thereby contributing to solutions to end homelessness in Canada.
His research on homelessness has focused on youth, economic strategies, nutritional vulnerability, education and legal and justice issues, as well as solutions to homelessness from both a Canadian and international perspective. Recently he has co-edited volumes on youth homelessness in Canada and on Housing First. In 2014, Dr. Gaetz also became President of Raising the Roof, Canada’s leading charity focusing on solutions to homelessness.
Volker Busch-Geertsema
GISS | Bremen (European Observatory on Homelessness)
Dr. Volker Busch-Geertsema is a senior research fellow at the Association for Innovative Social Research and Social Planning (GISS, Bremen, Germany). He is a member of the European Observatory on Homelessness since 1995 and
since 2009 he is the Coordinator of the Observatory and a member of the editorial team of the European Journal of Homelessness. He has conducted a large number of extensive research projects on different aspects of homelessness and housing exclusion (including definition and measurement) in Germany and Europe.
Between 2011 and 2013 he has coordinated the “Housing First Europe” project funded by the European Commission. In 2014 he published together with colleagues the results of a large research project on prevention of homelessness in Germany`s most populated regional state North Rhine-Westphalia and a statistical update of the extent and profile of homelessness in European member states. He has been involved in a number of evaluations of re-housing projects for homeless people and provides advice and support for a regional governmental action program to prevent and reduce homelessness. He is also member of the core research team of a project funded by the European Commission until December 2015 about homelessness prevention in the context of evictions in all 28 EU member states.
For IGH he has worked with Suzanne Fitzpatrick and Dennis Culhane on a proposed global typology of homelessness and reflections on measurement of homelessness on a global scale.
Tim Richter
CEO | Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness
Tim Richter is the President & CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH). The mission of the CAEH is to create a national movement to prevent and end homelessness in Canada. Prior to joining the CAEH, Tim was President & CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation charged with leading the implementation of Calgary's 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness – the first plan of its kind in Canada.
In the first four years of Calgary’s 10 Year Plan more than 4,000 homeless men, women and children were housed, 3,582 units of affordable housing were funded, and homelessness went down for the first time in 20 years of counting.