Participant Bios

Ronald L. Book, PA
Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust
Chairman

Ronald L. Book is a specialist in governmental affairs and administrative law, with a Juris Doctorate degree from Tulane University and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Florida International University.

An active participant in South Florida's professional arena, Book is a Member and Chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, having administered over $250 million in funding; and is an outside advisor to the Broward Community Partnership on the Homeless. He was named Homeless Advocate of the Year in 1994; named National Advocate of the Year by Autism Society of America, and was the recipient of the following awards: the Public Advocate of the Year Award by the National Epilepsy Foundation, 2003 Bill Colson Community Service Award from the Greater Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce, 2004 James J. Blosser Community Trusteeship Award from the Broward Partnership For the Homeless, Survivor Activist Award from the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence; In 2004, in one of Mr. Book’s proudest moments, he was awarded the Alvah Chapman Humanitarian of the Year Award for his 12 years of service to the homeless in Miami-Dade County.

He is a Board Member emeritus of the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Foundation ;a trustee and Council of 100 member of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and sits on the Legislative Affairs and State Affairs committees. He is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Epilepsy Foundation of South Florida, Inc., a former member of the Steering Committee for the Summit of the Americas, a member of the University Outreach Development Council at Florida International University. Member of the Orange Bowl Foundation Board of Directors 2005 – 2008; Chair of Children’s Home Society of Florida Foundation; Trustee Member of United Way of Miami-Dade; and Executive Committee Member, The National Conference for Community and Justice. Member of Miami-Dade County Mayor’s Mental Health Task Force; Chairman of the Mental Health Care Finance and Sustainability Subcommittee; member of Miami-Dade Community Affordable Housing Strategies Alliance Task Force; Board Member, Overtown Youth Center Board of Directors; Chairman, Partnership For Recovery/No Blue Roofs, administering a $15 million budget. Book is a founding member of Lauren’s Kids, Inc., a 501(c)(3) created to help children who have become victims and survivors of sexual assault.

He is a former Director and Special Counsel of Florida Governor, Bob Graham’s Cabinet and Legislative Affairs Office and Director of the Administrative and Governmental Law Department for Miami-based Sparber, Shevin, Shapo, Heilbronner & Book, one of Florida's most influential law firms from 1977 to 1987, when it disbanded. During part of his tenure with former Governor Bob Graham, Book also served as Executive Director of the constitutional revision campaign, "Five for Florida's Future" raising close to $1.0 million to support the effort. Over the past decade and a half, he has raised over $25 million for various candidates and causes.

Mr. Book currently operates his own practice out of Aventura and Tallahassee. Of all his accomplishments, Ron and his wife, Pat, are most proud of their children, Lauren (23), Samantha (21) and Chase (16).

Martha Burt, PhD
Urban Institute
Director of Social Services Research Program

Dr. Martha Burt is the Director of the Social Services Research Program at the Urban Institute.  She received her Ph.D. in sociology in 1972, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Since then she has been involved in research and evaluation pertaining to a wide variety of populations and issues.  Current homeless-related work includes a study of life after transitional housing for families in five communities; an evaluation of efforts to reduce homelessness among seriously mentally ill people in Los Angeles (recent report—System Change Efforts and their Results: Los Angeles 2005-2006); an evaluation of LA’s HOPE, one of five HUD/DOL funded housing and employment demonstrations for long-term homeless people; and an evaluation of the past 15 years of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health’s Special Homeless Initiative. 

She recently completed Changing Homeless and Mainstream Service Systems: Essential Approaches to Ending Homelessness (Burt and Spellman, 2007), an invited review for the Second National Symposium on Homelessness Research.  Evaluations of Santa Monica’s continuum of care and strategy to end homelessness and of family permanent supportive housing in San Francisco led to two publications, Ending Homelessness in Santa Monica: Current Efforts and Recommended Next Steps (2007) and The Family Permanent Supportive Housing Initiative: Family History and Experiences in Supportive Housing (2005).  Reports of studies she directed for HUD, Strategies for Reducing Chronic Street Homelessness (2004) and Evaluating Continuums of Care for Homeless People (2002), have recently been followed (spring 2006) by a companion Strategies for Preventing Homelessness, also done for HUD.  Her third book on homelessness, Helping America’s Homeless: Emergency Shelter or Affordable Housing? (2001), was based on analyses and interpretation of the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients.  She is also the first author of the federal report of the same survey, Homelessness: Programs and the People They Serve (1999).  She has also recently written guides for conducting cost avoidance analyses and projecting from point-in-time to annual homeless counts for the Corporation for Supportive Housing. 

Her work on homelessness began in 1983, with an examination of the administrative structure of the first two waves of FEMA's Emergency Food and Shelter Program.  In 1987 she directed the first national survey of homeless individuals.  That study focused on soup kitchen and shelter users in cities over 100,000 population, and is reported in America's Homeless: Numbers, Characteristics, and the Programs that Serve Them (1989).  In 1992 she published Over the Edge: The Growth of Homelessness in the 1980s, which analyzes why homelessness became a major social problem in that decade.  Also in 1992 (and again in 1996) she compiled Practical Methods for Counting Homeless People: A Manual for State and Local Jurisdictions, which has been widely disseminated and used.  She has presented papers at a number of European conferences on homelessness, and continues to be involved in research and policy work on homelessness and residential instability.

Carol L.M. Caton, PhD
Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons
Professor of Clinical Public Health
Director, Columbia Center for Homelessness Prevention Studies

Dr. Carol Caton is the Director of the Columbia University Center for Homelessness Prevention Studies. She is a Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences (in Psychiatry) and a Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Caton has conducted NIH-funded research on homelessness and severe mental illness for over 25 years, including community studies of people with schizophrenia and their offspring, outcome of treatment for schizophrenia and services to the homeless mentally ill, runaway and homeless youth, risk and protective factors for homelessness, longitudinal research on the course of homelessness, psychosis and drug use comorbidity, and service innovation to engage patients with psychosis and drug use comorbidity in needed treatment programs. She has authored two books on schizophrenia and homelessness and authored or co-authored numerous scientific articles in these areas. Dr. Caton has collaborated with the New York State Office of Mental Health, the New York City Department of Homeless Services, the New York City Human Resources Administration, and Mayor Bloomberg’s 2004 Task Force for the Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness in New York City. She currently serves on the New York City Department of Homeless Services Research Advisory Group.

Sarah Ciambrone, MS
Boston Healthcare for the Homeless
Director of Respite

Sarah Ciambrone is Director of Respite Services for Boston Health Care for the Homeless at McInnis House, a 90-bed facility that provides medical respite care to homeless men and women. She is responsible for the administrative oversight, leadership and development of this nationally recognized, model program providing short-term care for medically ill homeless adults with a staff of over 150 persons. She was one of 21 nonprofit CEOs chosen to participate in the Eureka-Boston Fellowship program, completing the 2-year leadership program in 2003. Sarah is a licensed Speech Language Pathologist and received her Masters in Science from Purdue University. She is an active member of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council (NHCHC) Clinicians’ Network, and previously chaired the NHCHC Respite Care Providers Network.

Rosendo Collazo, D.O.
Camillus Health Concern
Director of Health Services

Dr. Collazo ensures that CHC provides the highest standard of primary health care and mental and dental health care services to the poor and homeless men, women and children of Miami-Dade County. At Dr. Collazo’s direction, CHC actively engages its Quality Improvement Program to include clinical measures that are reviewed and consistently monitored for achievement of industry standards.

Dr. Collazo shares his expertise in the capacity of Chairperson of the Clinical Committee of Health Choice Network, a working committee that oversees all clinical functions of seven centers and fifteen sites, serving over 100,000 patients across Florida. In order to provide the highest standards of health care for the underserved population of Florida, the committee, under Dr. Collazo’s direction, develops common clinical protocols, participates in state sponsored health initiatives, reviews center productivity and clinical benchmarks and quality are guidelines, and reviews current medical events.

Dr. Collazo received his Doctorate of Osteopathic Medicine from Nova-Southeastern University in 1989. He is a Board Certified Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and Diplomate of the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners.

His current professional appointments include the National Health Service Corps, Voluntary Assistant Professor at the University of Miami School of Medicine, Adjunct Clinical Professor at Barry University School of Graduate Medical Sciences and Podiatric Medicine and Surgery, and Member of the American College of Physicians.

William Darrow, PhD
Florida International University, Robert Stempel School of Public Health
Professor, Health Promotion and Prevention
Principal Investigator, Florida REACH 2010 HIV/AIDS Research Project

Bill Darrow is a Professor of Public Health at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, Florida.  He teaches graduate-level courses  in the College of Health and Urban Affairs on theories of health behavior, community organization for health promotion, program planning and evaluation, and survey research methods in public health.  He serves as Principal Investigator for a multi-million dollar HIV- prevention project and continues to conduct research and publish on the social and behavioral aspects of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Before accepting a position at FIU in August 1994, Bill served as Chief, Behavioral and Prevention Research Branch, Division of STD/HIV Prevention, National Center for Prevention Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  He has published over100 scientific papers in professional journals, books, and research monographs.  In addition, he has presented more than 100 scientific papers at national and international meetings, and has consulted with many professional and service organizations, including the Global Program on AIDS, the World Health Organization, and the European Union.

Bill Darrow was recognized for his lifetime contributions to science and humanity by his hometown of Norwich, Connecticut, in 1992 when he was presented with their "Native Son" Award.  In 1993, he received the Award for Sociological Practice from the Society for Applied Sociology.  In 1994, he accepted the Thomas Parran Award from the American Venereal Disease Association.  In 1996, he was the sole recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award given by his alma mater, the University of Connecticut.  In 1998, Bill Darrow and his colleagues were selected by the Editors of the Journal of Sex Research to receive the Hugo Beigel Award for the best original research article published in their peer-review journal.

His role in demonstrating the sexual transmission of the AIDS virus was described by Randy Shilts in “And the Band Played On.” His character was portrayed by Richard Masur in the Emmy-Award winning motion picture of the same name.  He can be seen playing himself in “The Zero Factor,” part one of the four-part documentary, “A Time of AIDS” (shown most recently on the Discovery Channel). In 1999, Bill appeared in the ZDF German Television series, “100 Moments of the 20th Century,” to talk about the extent of scientific knowledge about AIDS in 1985, and how that knowledge evolved from a series of scientific studies planned and conducted by Bill Darrow and his colleagues at CDC.

Marvin Dunn, PhD
Florida International University (Retired)
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Retired

As Resident Scholar of the Institute of Homeless Studies at Camillus House, Dr. Dunn is responsible for Institute’s curriculum development and cultural diversity. Dr. Dunn began his career as a naval officer, serving from 1961 to 1967. He served as an officer aboard the aircraft carriers U.S.S Kitty Hawk and the U.S.S. Saratoga, and was the commander of the 14th Battalion, U.S. Naval Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois.

Dr. Dunn is a retired assistant professor of psychology and former chairperson of the Department of Psychology at Florida International University. In that position he was a seminal influence on students working for positive social change. He began such innovative programs as the Cultural and Human Interaction Center, which addressed racially motivated violence in the Dade County schools of the early 1970’s.

During that same period he shaped and guided The Institute on Sexism and Racism at Florida International University. In 1981, he founded the Academy for Community Education, an innovative program, which addressed the needs of youth at risk of becoming school dropouts. A book he co-authored, The Miami Riots of 1980, Crossing the Bounds, a study of the McDuffie riots in Dade County, is the definitive work on this historic event.

Throughout his career Dr. Dunn has worked tirelessly for positive social change and social justice. In 1989, he was named Educator of the Year by the Florida Civil Rights Commission. Dr. Dunn’s writing and research interests also encompass history. His book, Black Miami in the Twentieth Century, was published in 1997. Dr. Dunn’s latest book, “The Storm is Passing Over” The History of Blacks in Florida (1513-2000), will be published soon.

Dr. Dunn has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from Morehouse College in Atlanta; a Masters Degree in Education, Administration and Supervision from the Roosevelt University in Chicago; and a Ph.D in Psychology from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Sondra J. Fogel, Ph.D., ACSW
Associate Professor
University of South Florida,  School of Social Work

Sondra J. Fogel is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of South Florida. She received her Ph.D. in social work from the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and her MSSW from Columbia University in NY City. Her primary research interests focuses on individual and family homelessness, the working poor, housing policy, and university-community engagement. She serves as the Associate Editor for Families in Society, and recently completed a special issue on the working poor for this journal. She has collaborated with diverse organizations on various homeless and housing service programs helping local organizations evaluate their services and improve their outcomes.

Jack Garrett, MA
Program Manager
Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County

Jack Garrett is an Urban Anthropologist originally from Southern California. He has a M.A. in Applied Anthropology from California State University, Long Beach. His primary research focus is on homeless custodial fathers. His professional background is in industry as well as with nonprofit organizations. He has conducted homeless surveys and enumerations in rural and urban environments on both coasts. He has been a guest speaker on homeless topics at universities and other institutions. In addition he has conducted trainings specifically designed to accommodate communities’ efforts to enumerate and understand their homeless population. He is currently employed by the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County in Tampa, FL.

Stephanie Geller, Ed.M.
National Center on Family Homelessness
Research Associate

Stephanie Geller is a Research Associate at the National Center, NCFH, managing a multi-site study that examines the effectiveness of different housing and service approaches for homeless families.  Before coming to NCFH, Ms. Geller conducted research on community-based systems of health care for low-income uninsured populations and publicly funded substance abuse treatment services.  Ms. Geller has also provided technical assistance to non-profit organizations and local and state governmental agencies, helping them design needs assessments, identify best practices, develop new programs, and conduct outcome evaluations.  Ms. Geller received her B.A. from Wellesley College and her Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Jennifer Highley, NP
Director of Psychiatric Services
Common Ground Community

Jennifer Highley is a board-certified psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner who holds a faculty appointment at Columbia University School of Nursing, where she teaches graduate-level coursework in psychopathology as well as precepts nurse practitioner candidates in clinical settings. Jennifer has practiced psychiatry in a number of urban settings in New York City: in a city shelter serving 200 mentally ill, chemically addicted homeless men, detox/rehab, street outreach team, soup kitchen, drop-in center, safe haven and street-to-home team. As the Director of Psychiatric Services at Common Ground in New York City, the nation’s largest provider of supportive housing to formerly homeless and low-income individuals, Jennifer has spearheaded efforts to measure the incidence and severity of cognitive impairment among persons experiencing homelessness, as well as provide person-centered, humane psychiatric care.

Javier Hiriart, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Camillus Health Concern

As Chief Medical Officer of Camillus Health Concern, Javier Hiriart is responsible for the provision of comprehensive primary healthcare services to homeless or indigent persons of Miami-Dade County. Dr. Hiriart directs the supervision and evaluation of CHC’s primary medical providers, oversees daily clinical, operational and program planning activities and promotes all quality improvement activities. Dr. Hiriart’s role includes preceptorship of health professional students from university programs.

Dr. Hiriart is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine as well as by the American Board of Pediatrics and is a Voluntary Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami. Dr. Hiriart holds professional society membership in the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American College of Physicians. He has received the AMA/Glaxo Welcome Leadership Award for community service and leadership. Prior to coming to Camillus Health Concern, Dr. Hiriart completed his residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Miami/Jackson Health System in June 2000.

Kim J. Hopper, PhD
Columbia University
Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health

Kim Hopper, Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, has been a leader in efforts to understand, address, and end homelessness since 1980. He is a medical anthropologist who also works as a research scientist at the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, where he co-directs the Center for the Study of Issues in Public Mental Health. He is author of Reckoning with Homelessness, a stocktaking of two decades of research, advocacy, and theoretical work in that field, and co-editor of the forthcoming Recovery from Schizophrenia: An International Perspective, a report from the WHO collaborative study on the long-term course and outcome of schizophrenia.

Since 1979, Dr. Hopper has done ethnographic and historical research on psychiatric care and on homelessness, chiefly in New York City. Active in homeless advocacy efforts since 1980, he served as president of the National Coalition for the Homeless from 1991-1993. His current research interests include the reconfiguration of public mental health, cross-cultural studies of psychotic disorder, community-based modalities of coercion, and dimensions of recovery and support in severe mental illness and he is currently co-investigator on a number of NIMH-funded studies.

He was co-convener of a Qualitative Methods Institute at NYU in the summer of 2002 and consults frequently on methodological issues in mental health services research. From 1999 to June 2003, he was a member of the NIMH Services Research Scientific Review Committee.

Stephen Hwang, MD
University of Toronto
Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine
Director, Division of General Internal Medicine

Stephen Hwang is a specialist in general internal medicine with training in public health and epidemiology. His primary research interests are homelessness and health, access to health care for homeless persons, and housing as a determinant of population health. Dr. Hwang is a Research Scientist at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto; Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto; and Director, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Toronto.  Dr. Hwang was a physician with the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program for 4 years.  For the last 11 years, he has provided clinical care to homeless men at a large shelter in Toronto.

Stefan Kertesz, MD MSc
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)
Assistant Professor, Divisions of Preventive and General Internal Medicine
Scientist, Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Stefan G. Kertesz is a primary care physician and health services researcher with 11 years’ experience providing primary care to homeless individuals in community health centers and other settings. He has conducted on health services issues related to addiction and the care of homeless individuals since 2000, receiving funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and other resources. He serves on the Board of Metropolitan Birmingham Services for the Homeless, the primary organization charged with handling McKinney homeless funds for Birmingham, Alabama. He also served on Birmingham’s Mayoral Commission to Prevent and End Chronic Homelessness (2006-2007) and has published in both the scientific and lay press on issues related to the health care of homeless individuals. The opinions he presents represent his own views and are not those of either the National Institute on Drug Abuse or the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.

Paul Koegel, PhD
RAND Corporation
Associate Director of RAND Health

Dr. Koegel received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1982. As a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA Paul Koegel worked closely with Bob Edgerton, Ron Gallimore, Keith Kernan and Tom Weisner in the Department of Psychiatry on a series of studies of the community adaptation of mildly retarded adults.  Since that time, Dr. Koegel has held positions in the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, and the RAND Corporation, where he has spent the last 16 years and now serves as Associate Director of the Health Unit. 

Dr. Koegel’s research has focused primarily on the adaptation of marginal populations to contemporary urban settings and how the systems of care that are mandated to assist them either facilitate or hinder that adaptation.  Through his 25-year research career he has addressed questions related to these issues with regard to several populations, including adults with mental retardation, homeless individuals, adults with serious mental illness, and with substance abuse disorders. He has done so using multiple methods, including ethnological and other qualitative methods associated with anthropology, epidemiological methods, evaluation techniques, and health services methods and perspectives. 

Dr. Koegel is nationally recognized as one of the leading researchers on homelessness and mental illness.  He directed an NIMH-funded study of homelessness in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles that documented the demographic, social support, and life-style characteristics of the inner-city homeless, and determined the prevalence of mental illness among this population.  An NIAAA-funded secondary analysis of these data explored the epidemiology of alcoholism among this population.  Dr. Koegel was also the principal investigator of a longitudinal ethnographic study of the adaptation of homeless mentally ill adults in Los Angeles’ Skid Row.  He co-directed the NIMH-funded Course of Homelessness Study, a large prospective examination of exits into and out of homelessness among mentally ill and non-mentally ill homeless adults.  He was also principal investigator of the NIMH-funded Public Sector Costs of the Homeless Mentally Ill Study, which examined service use patterns and costs among homeless and domiciled SMI persons in Houston, Texas. 

More recently, Dr. Koegel has focused on applying participatory research approaches that allow researchers to work together with community partners to solve community problems.  He has worked closely for the past several years with Healthy African American Families (HAAF) on the Witness for Wellness initiative, a South Los Angeles community partnered participatory research effort that is mobilizing community members to implement quality improvement strategies that target depression and depression care.  He is playing a similar role on a HAAF effort to improve diabetes care in South Los Angeles. 

As part of developing the Community Based Participatory Research approach, Dr. Koegel has been a key collaborator in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program, mentoring Scholars, co-teaching a course on qualitative methods, and serving on the Research Advisory Committee. 

Ken Kraybill, MSW
National Healthcare for the Homeless Council
Training Specialist

Ken Kraybill is the Training Specialist for the National Health Care for the Homeless Council – a membership organization that provides advocacy, research, training and support for Health Care for the Homeless projects and other homeless programs nationwide. Drawing upon eighteen years of direct service in homeless settings as a social worker, Ken has developed various curricula, resource guides, and facilitated numerous workshops on outreach and engagement, motivational interviewing, supervision, personal and organizational wellness, and essentials of care for people living in shelter.

John Lozier, MSSW
National Healthcare for the Homeless Council
Executive Director

John N. Lozier has been Executive Director of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council since its founding in January, 1990, and is oversees all aspects of the Council’s activity in advocacy, training, technical assistance, research, peer support, organizing, and fund development.

Prior to his employment by the National Council, Mr. Lozier was Director of Services for the Homeless for the Metropolitan Health Department in Nashville and Davidson County, with responsibility for development and operation of a specialized primary care clinic and a multi-service day center for homeless people.  He had earlier served as the Family Advocate at Family and Children’s Service in Nashville, and as Tennessee Director of Southern Prison Ministry.

Among other national-level involvements, Mr. Lozier has served on the Board of Directors of the National Coalition for the Homeless, the Caucus on Homelessness of the American Public Health Association, and the Homeless Health Care Committee of the National Association of Community Health Centers.  Locally, he has served on Boards of Directors for Tennessee Citizen Action, the East Nashville YMCA, the Mental Health Association, the Tennessee Conference on Social Welfare and numerous other community organizations.

In 1994, Mr. Lozier was presented the Director’s Award from the Bureau of Primary Health Care, United States Public Health Service, for “his extraordinary dedication and invaluable contribution to the national Health Care for the Homeless grantee community and the homeless people they serve.”  He received the 1988 Charles C. Darling Award from the Tennessee Association of Primary Health Care Centers “for outstanding achievement in organizing, delivering and financing health services to populations with special needs”; the 1989 Advocacy Award from the Middle Tennessee Region of the Tennessee Conference on Social Welfare; and the 1987 Advocacy Award from Effective Advocacy for Citizens with Handicaps.

Mr. Lozier holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Tennessee and a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Brown University.  He has also studied in the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University.

The National Health Care for the Homeless Council is a membership organization of providers of health care services for homeless people.  The mission of the National Council is “to help bring about reform of the health care system to best serve the needs of people who are homeless, to work in alliance with others whose broader purpose is to eliminate homelessness, and to provide support to Council members.” 

Karen Mahar
Chief Operating Officer
Camillus House, Inc. Institute of Homeless Studies

As Chief Operating Officer of Camillus House’s Institute of Homeless Studies, Karen Mahar is developing and overseeing a variety of innovative research, training, and educational initiatives regarding chronic homelessness. She joined Camillus House in 1994 and during her 14 years with the organization has held numerous positions working in communications, grants, planning and program development. She is also currently a graduate student at Florida International University where she is working toward a PhD in Comparative Sociology, with a focus on homelessness.

Ms. Mahar is Board Member of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, as well as the Miami Coalition for the Homeless. Previously, she served as Chair of the Miami-Dade Homeless Providers’ Forum and on the Boards of the Haitian Women of Miami, Allegany Franciscan Foundation and the Florida Office of Collegiate Volunteerism. Ms. Mahar was a Fellow with Class II of the Miami Fellows Initiative, a leadership project of the Dade Community Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, graduating from the two-year long program in 2003.

Ms. Mahar has a passion for filmmaking and the visual arts, and in 2003 founded a non-profit production company, "Digital Spotlight Productions", which produced short documentaries on local social issues. She is now capitalizing on her talents and expertise in this area to help the Institute of Homeless Studies develop a line of DVDs.

Raised outside of Rochester, NY, Ms. Mahar came to Miami in 1988 to attend the University of Miami, from which she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in Motion Picture Production and Creative Writing.

Helena Martinez, PsyD
Clinical Supervisor
Citrus Health Network

Helena Martinez’s clinical experience includes work with children, adolescents, adults, families, groups, dually-diagnosed, homeless, and the chronically mentally ill in private hospitals, Partial Hospitalization Programs, outpatient facilities and residential treatment programs. Her administrative experience includes work in coordination of treatment planning, training and supervision of staff for the Adult Residential Programs. Dr. Martinez’s special interests revolve around training, working with the chronically mentally ill, culturally diverse populations, research. She is involved in direct service delivery at Citrus’ Adult Homeless programs, such as Kiva & Shaman Transitional Housing, Crisis Outplacement Beds Jail Diversion, Coordinated Out-Reach, the Emergency Food and Shelter grant, and the Housing First SHP programs for Citrus Health.

Jim O’Connell, MD
Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program
President and Street Physician

Dr. O’Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1982, and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1985.  In 1985, Dr. O'Connell began fulltime clinical work with homeless individuals as the founding physician of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program.  In 1988 he became Executive Director of the program, overseeing the growth and development of BHCHP’s service delivery model which now serves over 9000 homeless persons each year in three hospital-based clinics and over 70 shelters and other outreach sites in Boston.

In 1993, Dr. O’Connell founded BHCHP’s Barbara McInnis House, a 90-bed freestanding medical respite program that provides acute, sub-acute, peri-operative, rehabilitative, recuperative, and palliative end-of-life care for homeless men and women who would otherwise require costly acute care hospitalizations.  This program has proven an innovative national model for the continuum of care required for this vulnerable population.  Working with the MGH Laboratory of Computer Science, Dr. O’Connell designed and implemented the nation’s first computerized medical record for a homeless program in 1995. 

Since 1996, he has served as President of BHCHP and has juggled an active role in the strategic direction of the program with the demands of a busy clinical practice, spending much of his time caring for Boston’s street population. He is also an Assistant Professor of Medicine with Boston University and a Clinical Instructor in Medicine with Harvard Medical School.

From 1989 until 1996, Dr. O'Connell served as the National Program Director of the Homeless Families Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.  Dr. O'Connell has been intimately involved in the issues of substance abuse and chemical addictions, and has served as the Medical Director of Andrew House Dual Diagnosis Detoxification Unit since 1986 and the Bay Cove Substance Abuse Center and Methadone Clinic since 1990.

Dr. O’Connell is the editor of The Health Care of Homeless Persons: A Manual of Communicable Diseases and Common Problems in Shelters and on the Streets, and an editor of A Practical Approach to Pulmonary Medicine.  His articles have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Circulation, the Journal of Clinical Ethics, and several other medical journals.  He was featured on ABC’s Nightline, and has received numerous awards during his career, including the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American College of Physicians. 

David Raymond, MS
Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust
Executive Director

David Raymond is responsible for overseeing the Homeless Continuum of Care Programming, with a budget of $24 million, to serve thousands of homeless individuals and families per year.

David , a Miami Beach Native, holds a B.A. in Psychology from F.I.U. and an M.S. degree in Mental Health Counseling from Barry University. David is a certified rehabilitation counselor, a certified teacher, and a licensed real estate broker.

Prior to working in Social Services, David’s had a varied background. He was a Science teacher, managed a pathology laboratory, and had his own Real Estate development company.

David has extensive experience in human services, serving as: Director of the Providers’ Forum (formerly the Homeless Coalition in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties), President of the Miami Supportive Housing Corporation, Vice Chair of the Special Olympics Council, Chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee for the Community Committee for Developmental Handicaps, Committee Chair for the Florida Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, and Chair of the Long Range Planning Committee of the Homeless Trust. For ten years he was at Jewish Vocational Service, responsible for all administrative and program functions, completing his service there as Assistant Executive Director.

David spent over four years at the Department of Children and Families, finishing his tenure there as the Acting District Administrator. He was responsible for all operations and program areas for Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties. These duties included oversight of child welfare and adult service investigations, operations and programs, economic services, developmental disability, mental health and substance abuse programs. He was responsible for a staff of more than 3,000 and a budget of $350 million.

Manuel Sarria, LCSW
Citrus Health Network
Administrator of Adult Residential Programs

Manuel Sarria began working with disabled adults in 1996. His clinical experience includes working with In-Patient Adolescents with conduct disorders and sex offenses, individual and family counseling of adults with addictions, determining competency of Adults in crisis stabilization, and providing psychotherapy to children, adults, and family members.

Presently Manny Administers the Adult Residential programs for Citrus Health Network. Through a low demand treatment philosophy these programs have proven to engage 85% of chronic homeless adults who otherwise do not accept treatment and housing.

Cindy Schwartz, MS, MBA
Eleventh Judicial Circuit Criminal Mental Health Project
Project Director, Jail Diversion Program

Cindy A. Schwartz has devoted her career to the development and implementation of programs and services for individuals that are disabled by severe mental illnesses. She currently serves as the Project Director of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Criminal Mental Health Project- Jail Diversion Program. In this capacity, she has worked toward decriminalizing mental illness by promoting system transformation, community integration and recovery. Cindy is also actively involved in her community and serves on a variety of professional organizations, boards and committees. She is currently the chairperson of the Adult Mental Health Subcommittee to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Planning Council for the District 11 Department of Children and Families. Cindy has a master’s degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Masters in Business Administration from Nova Southeastern University. She is also a certified WRAP (Wellness Recovery Action Plan) facilitator and trainer for SOAR (SSI/SSDI, Outreach, Access and Recovery).

Alex Stepick, PhD
Florida International University
Director, Immigration and Ethnicity Institute
Professor of Anthropology & Sociology

Alex Stepick is currently Director of the Immigration and Ethnicity Institute and Professor of Anthropology & Sociology at Florida International University in Miami. He has been conducting research on the impact of immigration on Miami for the past 20 years. His co-authored book, City on the Edge, on how immigration has changed Miami, has won two national awards, the Robert Park Award for the best book in Urban Sociology and the Anthony Leeds Award for the best book in Urban Anthropology. His most recent book, Pride Against Prejudice: Haitians in the United States has already gone through numerous printings. His latest manuscript, This Land is Our Land, which will be published by University of California Press, has been described as "superior" and providing a "new framework for understanding immigration and interethnic relations."

The American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology awarded him the Margaret Mead Award for his work with Haitian refugees. His law review article on U.S. refugee and asylum law is used as a definitive reference in classrooms at major law schools throughout the U.S.

He has received grants from all the major scientific research institutions, including the largest grant ever in Cultural Anthropology from the National Science Foundation. He recently served a National Academy of Sciences Committee on Immigrant Children and Health and on the Cultural Anthropology Panel of the National Science Foundation. Dr. Stepick has also testified before the U.S. Congress and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee Affairs and his work has been used by the British House of Commons.

Dr. Stepick received his B.A. in Anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and his Ph.D. in Social Sciences at the University of California at Irvine. He had a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, was a Visiting Professor at the Johns Hopkins University, and a Fulbright Fellow in Mexico. During 1994-95, he was a Visiting Scholar at the prestigious Russell Sage Foundation in New York. The Pew Charitable Trusts recently funded him to be principal investigator on a major grant to examine immigration, religion, and civic engagement in Miami.

Marc Trotz, MPH
San Francisco Department of Public Health
Director of Housing and Urban Health

Marc Trotz is currently the Director of Housing and Urban Health for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.  Mr. Trotz has spent the last twenty years working in the public sector on housing and health policies.  The majority of his work has focused on the development of supportive housing for homeless people, elderly, and other populations in need of housing with on-site services.    Mr. Trotz strongly believes that housing is a healthcare issue and that stable and supportive housing environments must be developed to make meaningful and lasting improvements in the lives of homeless and low-income people.

In 1999, Mr. Trotz introduced the Direct Access to Housing program in San Francisco which has been recognized nationally as a pioneering approach to housing and stabilizing people who have had long histories of homelessness along with complex medical and behavioral health issues.  The Direct Access to Housing program now includes 13 sites and over 1000 units.  Prior to his work with the Health Department, Mr. Trotz worked for the San Francisco Mayor’s office of Housing and was the Mayor’s Homeless Coordinator.    Mr. Trotz is an innovative leader working to create life affirming housing options as an alternative to life on the streets and costly institutional care.

Kathy Wiggins, MSW
School District of Hillsborough County

Kathy Wiggins has been employed as a social worker with Hillsborough County Public School System for the past 4 years. She has spent three of these years working with the Homeless Education and Literacy Project (H.E.L.P.) Kathy has a Masters of Social Work degree from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice from Marymount University. Kathy has played a significant role in growing the H.E.L.P. Program to a team of seven full-time staff and 10 part-time tutors. In 2006 the program was honored to be named Best Supporting Agency by the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County.

Beth Weitzman, PhD
New York University, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
Professor of Health and Public Policy

Beth C. Weitzman, Professor of Health and Public Policy and Director of Doctoral Studies, joined the faculty of New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in 1987.  She teaches classes in research methods and in community health and medical care.  Her research interests focus on urban policies affecting poor families; Dr. Weitzman has evaluated a range of program aimed at meeting the health, social service, housing, and educational needs of these families.  Dr. Weitzman has been directing the national evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Urban Health Initiative since its inception in 1995.  Previous research includes a NIDA-funded study examining the relationship of school absenteeism to survey-based estimates of adolescent risk behavior, and a longitudinal study of homeless families funded by NIMH. 

Dr. Weitzman’s work has been published in a variety of academic journals; recent articles can be found in the Public Administration Review, American Journal of Evaluation,  Journal of Adolescent Health, and Health and Place.   Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Prof. Weitzman worked both as a researcher for the New York City Board of Education and as an evaluation consultant.  Dr. Weitzman has served as a Board Member for Care for the Homeless in New York City for over a decade.  She holds a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.P.A. and Ph.D. from NYU.

James D. Wright, PhD
University of Central Florida
Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor, Department of Sociology

James D. Wright is an author, educator, and the Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida. Wright also serves as the Director of the UCF Institute for Social and Behavioral Sciences and as editor-in-chief of the journal Social Science Research.  He received his BA from Purdue University in 1969 and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1973.  He has published eighteen books and more than 250 journal articles, book chapters, essays, reviews, and polemics on topics ranging from poverty to homelessness to guns to NASCAR to survey and evaluation research methods. 

He began his career in homelessness research and advocacy in 1984 as the Principal Investigator for the national evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Health Care for the Homeless demonstration project.  Subsequent projects have included an assessment of S-Night (the Census Bureau's effort to count the homeless) in 1990; the NIAA research-demonstration project, the New Orleans Homeless Substance Abusers Project (1990-93); Projecto Alternativos, a homeless street kids project in Honduras (1991-1996); and a major multi-city study of violence in the lives of homeless women (2002-2005).

His publications on the homeless include three research monographs: Beside the Golden Door:  Policy, Politics and the Homeless (1998), Address Unknown:  The Homeless in America (1989), and Homelessness and Health (1987); along with several dozen journal articles, book chapters, Op Ed pieces and related polemics and scores of conference presentations and speeches.  On the advocacy side, Wright sits on the Board of Directors of the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida and chairs the Board's Research and Evaluation Committee.  He is also a Director of the Orlando Area Trust for the Homeless.

Suzanne Zerger, MA
National Healthcare for the Homeless Council
Research Specialist

Suzanne Zerger has been the Research Specialist for the National Health Care for the Homeless since September, 1999.  She has worked in the field of applied social science research, specializing in underserved populations, for over 15 years.  Prior to joining the Council, Ms. Zerger worked as an independent research and evaluation consultant for various agencies and instructed post-secondary Sociology courses for TVI Community College in Albuquerque, New Mexico (1997-2001).  Prior to that she worked as a Research Associate for the Wilder Research Center in St. Paul, Minnesota (1994-1997) and for Prairie Research Associates in Winnipeg, Manitoba (1992-1994).  Ms. Zerger is currently working on a PhD in Sociology at York University in Toronto, Ontario.  She holds a Master of Arts degree in Sociology from the State University of New York at Albany (1992) and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and English from Bluffton University, Bluffton, Ohio (1988).

Cheryl Zlotnick, RN, DrPH
Center for the Vulnerable Child of Children's Hospital & Research Center at Oakland
Associate Research Scientist/Program Manager

Cheryl Zlotnick RN MS MPH DrPH is Director of the Center for the Vulnerable Child at Children's Hospital & Research Center at Oakland, Clinical Scientist Faculty at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Affiliate Scientist at the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute, and Adjunct Associate Professor at Samuel Merritt College. Dr. Zlotnick is a registered nurse and clinical nurse specialist.  Her master's and doctorate are in public health from Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health (major in Occupational Medicine, emphasis in Biostatistics). 

Dr. Zlotnick began working with the homeless populations in 1984. Since then, she has had a variety of roles including: clinical nurse specialist, team coordinator, evaluator, program director, manager and researcher.  She has had several federal and foundation grants that support research studies and clinical programs benefiting individuals and families who have experienced homelessness.  Findings from her research and clinical programs have been presented at many professional meetings, and in more than 40 peer-reviewed articles in the fields of public health, nursing, medicine, psychology, and substance abuse.