Webinar: The Luxury of Staying Home

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Join us in community to learn about the critical role safe housing plays in the well-being of adults and children. Hear firsthand accounts on the fight to keep our neighbors housed and ideas on how we can strengthen this movement.

EVENT WILL BE SIMULTANEOUSLY INTERPRETED IN SPANISH & VIETNAMESE

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2021
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM

REGISTER ONLINE: bit.ly/LFstayinghome

For more information or accommodations, email kiyomi.yamamoto@lawfoundation.org.

PANEL FEATURING:

The Law Foundation’s upcoming housing event will feature a moderated panel about the important role safe housing plays in educational achievement and the health and well-being of adults and children. Learn more about the moderator and featured speakers below. 

Moderator: Gabriela Chavez-Lopez, SV@Home and President of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley

Gabriela is a community catalyst, committed to uplifting and championing community voices around challenging issues in our community — particularly those that disproportionately affect low-income communities & people of color. As a committed "Houser," she currently is digging into housing-solutions as the Communications and Membership Manager, for the leading housing policy, research, and advocacy organization in Silicon Valley, SV@Home. Gabriela is focused and dedicated to making Silicon Valley a more vibrant and equitable place for all of us to live and thrive. She is also the President of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley — herself a proud product of their flagship Latina leadership and civic engagement pipeline. As a “tri-sector athlete” she is experienced in effective and productive engagement in all three sectors: nonprofit, private, and government.

She has been selected to participate in a variety of leadership development opportunities and programs including Harvard Business School’s Young American Leaders Academy, California’s Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE) Program, Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley’s Engaged Latina Leadership Activists (ELLA) Program, and the USC Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics Certificate Program. She was also honored by the Commission on the Status of Women in 2020 as an “Extraordinary Women of 2020” based on her extensive community involvement and volunteerism.

Nadia Aziz, Housing Directing Attorney, Law Foundation of Silicon Valley

Nadia Aziz is the Housing Directing Attorney at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. Nadia has led groundbreaking housing litigation and policy advocacy throughout Silicon Valley in her role at the Law Foundation. Her work includes a multi-year effort to save Palo Alto’s only mobile home park, and class action fair housing litigation that asserted the right of Section 8 voucher holders to reasonable accommodations for additional bedrooms. Before working at the Law Foundation, Nadia was a housing attorney with Bay Area Legal Aid's Santa Clara County office where she represented tenants in unlawful detainer matters. Nadia graduated from UCLA School of Law in 2007. Nadia is married and has two daughters.

Dr. Ayindé Rudolph Ed.D., Superintendent, Mountain View Whisman School District

Dr. Rudolph has been the Superintendent since 2015. Previously, he served as Associate Director of School Transformation at the Buffalo Promise Neighborhood, a federally funded program, modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone that encourages communities to develop public-private partnerships. His achievements during his tenure with the Promise Neighborhood included instituting a 1:1 learning environment, which received recognition from President Obama and Secretary Arne Duncan at the White House; the implementation of a new teacher evaluation system; and three new curricula aligned to the new national standards. 

Dr. Rudolph received his Doctorate in Education in Leadership, Policy and Organizations from Vanderbilt University. He also holds an Educational Specialist degree in Educational Leadership and Administration as well as a Master of Education in Secondary Education from George Washington University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in History from Wittenberg University.

Jerome Shaw, President of the Sunnyvale Clients Collaborative at the Sunnyvale Homeless Shelter

Jerome Shaw has been homeless for 3 1/2 years and currently resides at a HomeFirst shelter in Sunnyvale. Jerome first became homeless in May 2013 when the four-plex apartment building he was living in was purchased and the new owner moved in. Living with his son and on unemployment in West San Jose at the time, Jerome bounced around from renting hotel rooms and staying with friends for about a year until he found a job and an apartment in early 2014. Due to complications related to his mental health, Jerome lost his job in 2015, was evicted from his apartment, and lost custody of his son, who was sent to live with his mother full time. Since then, Jerome has been homeless and has struggled with mental health issues. Jerome hopes to shine a light on the importance of mental health care, and the lack of care that is being provided to individuals who desperately need it.

Today, Jerome is the president of the Sunnyvale Shelter Client Collaborative and an apprentice in the local sheet metal workers union.

Tiffany Vuong, Tenant Organizer and Community Leader from Milpitas

Tiffany was born and raised in the South Bay. Having experienced housing insecurity and due to the lack of affordability in the area, she is a community organizer and advocate for housing. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2018 with a B.A. in Sociology and has been involved in social change work since moving back home. She mobilized voters of color with Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network (SIREN) for the 2018 midterm elections and started working with the Milpitas Renters Coalition in early 2019 to fight for tenant protections. 

Passionate about climate, racial, and housing justice, she ran for Milpitas City Council in 2020 and won over 7,000 votes in a tight race with eight candidates vying for two seats. Some integral parts of her platform included holding developers accountable for building affordable housing, protecting working class people, and utilizing the Housing First model to address homelessness. She embraced policies to create permanently affordable housing, such as community land trusts and limited-equity co-ops. She is also supportive of a Community Opportunity to Purchase ordinance which would allow a non-profit organization to make the first purchase offer when a multi-family complex is to be sold.

Welcoming Abre' Conner as the Law Foundation's Health Directing Attorney

The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley is pleased to welcome its new Directing Attorney of Health, Abre’ Conner. As Directing Attorney, Abre’ will lead the organization’s litigation and advocacy regarding health equity and the social determinants of health that impact historically excluded communities across Silicon Valley. Abre’ sits on the Law Foundation’s race, equity, and inclusion steering committee and leads work regarding jail conditions in Santa Clara County.  Prior to joining the Law Foundation,  Abre’ was a staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, where she advocated for the civil rights and liberties of Central Valley and Northern California residents. She led their statewide data collection campaign within Nor Cal’s racial and economic justice program regarding COVID-19 related public health data collection and accountability. 

Previously, Abre’ worked at the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, and on Capitol Hill. She was also an associate in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel in 2012.

Abre’ has received numerous awards and significant recognition for her work as a fierce advocate and lawyer. She was named a top 40 under 40 Nation’s Best Advocate by the National Bar Association and has appeared in the New York Times’ The Daily, American Bar Association Journal, and Cosmopolitan Magazine.

She is the founder of Together Restoring Economic Empowerment and liaison for the Standing Committee on Publication for the American Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division, Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness board member, and Northern California Social Action Coordinator for Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated. She also serves as the elected Assembly Clerk for the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division. This year, she will ascend to be Assembly Speaker, the chief policy officer for the Division.

Abre’ will lead a team of more than 20 attorneys, advocates, and staff. The Law Foundation’s Health Program provides free legal advice and representation to Santa Clara County residents who identify as having a mental health or physical disability. The program focuses on economic rights (such as public benefits, reasonable accommodations, and disability insurance) and patients’ rights, representing individuals in psychiatric facilities at over 4,500 due process and capacity hearings annually to ensure their rights and dignity are respected.

Law Foundation's Statement on Presidential Election

Alison Brunner, CEO of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, issued the following statement in response to the United States presidential election:

"Like many Americans, when I cast my ballot, I felt an overwhelming sense of uncertainty. Not about how I understood our community’s values of equity, inclusion, and opportunity for all, but more about the fragility of our democracy at this moment in history.

Millions of Americans voted for the ideals of the country and community in which they want to live. A community that values every person’s contribution. A community that embodies love and acceptance. A community that supports one another when times are tough.

We condemn the hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination against people with disabilities that has permeated our country, especially during the last four years through the Trump Administration. We urgently join our community partners and fellow community members demanding that all votes be counted.

As we face the adversity of an uncertain future, our obligation is to focus on what we know is right for our community. We know that democracy is critical. And it must be protected."