*U.S. Department of Health and Human Services*

*U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development*

*U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs*

*U.S. Department of Labor*

**Work to End Homelessness:**

**Linking Systems for Employment Outcomes**

*August 10--11, 2006*

*Doubletree Guest Suites*

*Minneapolis, MN*

**Biographies**

*Resource Persons/Facilitators/Staff*

**Donna Aligata** is President of Gold Cottage Industries LLC, a diverse
team of home-based consultants committed to "building and sustaining the
community through collaboration." Gold Cottage Industries provides its
clients with a variety of technical services, including strategic
planning, program design, training, facilitation, executive coaching,
and technical assistance.

For the past 30 years, Ms. Aligata has worked to facilitate cross-agency
collaboration, form strategic alliances, improve program outcomes, and
design programs related to the recovery community, mental health
consumers, people dealing with stigma related to HIV/AIDS, and homeless
people. She served for 8 years as Director of Development and Chief
Operating Officer for a national nonprofit health services firm. She
also served as Director of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration's Prison Technical Assistance and Training
Project for 3 years. Subsequently, she successfully leveraged more than
a million dollars to found The Center, a State of Connecticut addiction
counselor training institute where she served as Director. The Center
provides 250 courses annually for developing certified counselors to
work in the community. Ms. Aligata also served for 4 years as Project
Director of a substance abuse and infectious disease Cross-Training
Initiative, funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Health Resources and
Services Administration. On this project, she led a team of
multidisciplinary trainers working in 32 States and facilitated a
Federal interagency advisory group's collaborative process for bringing
agencies together to create policy change.

**Doug Bailey** has been the Community Employment Manager for the Ohio
Department of Mental Health (ODMH) for more than 5 years. In this role,
Mr. Bailey provides technical assistance on community employment and
recovery issues for mental health boards, providers, and
consumer-operated services throughout Ohio. He recently worked as the
Project Director for a 5-year Social Security Research Grant (Joint
Infrastructure Fund), which studied the impact of benefits counseling on
work for Social Security Administration beneficiaries and recipients.
Mr. Bailey is currently the Project Director for Ohio's Medicaid
Infrastructure Grant and a member of the ODMH Management Team for the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Supported
Employment Grant. Before coming to ODMH, he was the Vocational Director
for two nonprofit agencies in northeast Ohio and served as the Assistant
Area Manager for Rehabilitation Services Commission (Ohio Rehabilitative
Services Commission/Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation) in northeast
Ohio. Prior to his work in vocational rehabilitation, Mr. Bailey held
positions in Human Resources with two Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Bailey
has a master's degree from the Cleveland State University Graduate
School of Business in Cleveland, OH, with concentrations in human
resources, management and public administration. He is a member of the
National Rehabilitation Association, the U.S. Psychiatric Rehabilitation
Association, and the National Association of Workforce Development
Professionals, and he is a Certified Workforce Development Professional.

**Claire Courtney** is currently employed by the State of Minnesota
Department of Employment and Economic Development Rehabilitation
Services (DEED-RS) as the Mental Health Rehabilitation Specialist for
the Public Vocational Rehabilitation and Extended Employment programs.
She was responsible for developing and implementing and continues to
manage Rehabilitation Service's 26 Coordinated Employability projects
across the State. These projects provide innovative specialized
employment services for persons with serious mental illness in
collaboration with community rehabilitation providers. Ms. Courtney has
extensive experience working as a rehabilitation counselor and mental
health professional in community mental health and rehabilitation
programs. She represents DEED-RS on the Minnesota State Advisory Council
on Mental Health and the Minnesota Interagency Task Force on
Homelessness. She has a Master's in Rehabilitation Counseling and is a
Certified Rehabilitation Counselor. She is also a surveyor for the
Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Committees.

**Lane Dyer** is the Employment Services Deputy Director with the NC
Employment Security Commission. His current responsibilities include
oversight of the 94 Employment Security Commission offices operating in
North Carolina. During his career with the North Carolina Employment
Security Commission, Mr. Dyer has worked as a Regional Manager, Manager
of a

One Stop Career Center, Veterans Employment Representative, Unemployment
Insurance Claims Supervisor and an Employment Interviewer. He currently
serves on the Homelessness and Employment Work Group of North
Carolina\'s Interagency Council for Coordinating Homeless Programs.

**Becky Fink** is Chief Operating Officer of Rise Mental Health and
Housing and Homelessness Services. The Rise Housing Programs exclusively
serve single persons and parenting adults with mental illness, as well
as people with both mental illness and chemical health problems. She
began her mental health work as a mental health right's protection
advocate and then as a national trainer in the field of advocacy. In
1981, she was hired by Rise Inc. to provide people with psychiatric
disabilities job placement and followup services. Ms. Fink has managed
Federal PATH-funded homelessness outreach services. She has supervised
mental health case management and Independent Living Skills, Family
Homeless Prevention, 18 transitional housing programs sites, funded by
Federal ESGP and Minnesota State Transitional Housing Program funds. She
also has administered a federally funded HOME Tenant Base Rental
Assistance Program for approximately 8 years as well as Department of
Housing and Urban Development-funded Continuum of Care Supported Housing
services. She has been managing mental health, housing and homelessness
programs and supervising and supporting mental health staff at Rise for
18 years. Ms. Fink is familiar with both State and Federal mental
health, housing, homelessness, social security, medical and public
benefits programs, and eligibility.

Ms. Fink was a community-based advisor to the Office of U.S. Senator
Paul Wellstone on mental health and homelessness policy and has served
as the Chair of the Board of the Minnesota Mental Health Law Project, a
program of Minneapolis Legal Aid, and on the Board of Directors. She has
served for 25 years on the Anoka County Workforce Council and for 20
years as the Chair of the Anoka County Affordable Housing Coalition and
as an advisor to the Anoka County Family Homeless Prevention Services
Program.

**Nancy Fritz** was appointed by Governor John Baldacci in June 2005 as
Maine's first Director of Homeless Initiatives. She chairs the Statewide
Homeless Council and is responsible for initiating cooperation and
collaboration between State agencies and for policy development related
to homelessness. She also serves as a department director
for MaineHousing, the State's housing finance agency.\
\
Prior to her current position, Ms. Fritz spent the previous 20 years as
Executive Director of three different nonprofit organizations -- a
community action agency, an agency serving young children with special
needs and their families, and a domestic violence project.\
\
She is an ordained clergywoman. Her background also includes experience
in newspaper journalism and radio advertising. She earned a bachelor of
science degree in human development from the University of Maine at
Orono and a master of divinity degree from Bangor Theological Seminary
in Maine.

**Jamie Hart** is the Director of the Intercultural Health Practice Area
at Health Systems Research, Inc., and works on a variety of programs
devoted to increasing collaboration and improving health quality,
access, and cultural competency for those most in need, including those
facing homelessness, HIV, sickle cell disease, trauma, incarceration,
and co-occurring disorders. Dr. Hart currently directs the Homeless
Policy Academies Initiative, cofunded by several Federal agencies
including the Administration for Children and Families. She also directs
a project for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, utilizing
the same model to address decreasing disparities in pediatric asthma in
six States. She also directs two newly awarded Health Resources and
Services Administration contracts focusing on Ryan White Comprehensive
AIDS Resources Emergency Act Grantees' efforts to recruit and retain
people of color who are HIV positive in care and ability to assess the
severity of need for programs and services and distributing funds
accordingly. Dr. Hart has served as the Director for several Office of
Population Affairs assessment projects within Title X clinics (serving
primarily low-income and uninsured clients, who tend to be members of
underrepresented racial and ethnic groups) on the integration of HIV
prevention, the use of couples-based services, and the delivery of
clinical training for providers. She has facilitated numerous expert
panel and workgroup meetings on topics such as co-occurring disorders;
cultural competency in service delivery to people who are homeless and
have mental illnesses; and discharge planning from criminal justice,
behavioral health, primary care, and foster care systems.

Prior to coming to HSR, Dr. Hart worked at the University of Michigan on
issues related to multicultural teaching and conducted her dissertation
research on reproductive health and access to health care for
African-American women. Her previous work includes experience as a
research assistant on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's
Project REACH (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health) and a
program officer for multicultural affairs the Great Lakes Colleges
Association.

**Laura Kadwell** is the Minnesota Director for Ending Long-Term
Homelessness, reporting to the Commissioners of Human Services,
Corrections, and Housing. She leads implementation of the State's
business plan for ending long-term homelessness, which was developed in
2004 by a bipartisan Working Group of from the public, private, and
nonprofit sectors. Ms. Kadwell has served as the State of Minnesota's
Child Support Director, counsel to the Minnesota House of
Representatives Health and Human Services Committee, and Senior Program
Associate for the Children's Defense Fund -- Minnesota. She also has
practiced law and provided management consulting to the Department of
Work and Pensions in the United Kingdom as well as to State and local
child support agencies in the United States. Ms. Kadwell holds a
bachelor's degree from Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY, a master's
degree in English from the University of Missouri, and a juris doctorate
from the University of Minnesota Law School.

**Tom Koon** is a Program Manager with the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD). Since 1992, he has worked in the Office of
Community Planning and Development at HUD's Minneapolis Field Office.
Currently, he supervises a staff that works primarily with
McKinney-Vento Act-funded programs for the homeless (Supportive Housing
Program, Shelter plus Care, Single Room Occupancy Section 8 Moderate
Rehabilitation ) and other special needs programs. Mr. Koon has worked
with the Community Development Block Grant, the HOME program, the
Emergency Shelter Grant Program, and Housing Opportunity for Persons
with AIDS formula grants. In 1979, he joined HUD working in the
development of public housing, various Section 8 rental assistance
programs, Federal Housing Administration multifamily housing for
cooperative and rental housing, and supportive housing for the disabled
and elderly. He has a master's of public administration from Indiana
University. While in the Peace Corps, he was a Planning and Development
Officer for the Lobatse Town Council in the Republic of Botswana.

**Larinda Meade** joined the Maine Department of Labor as the Director
of the Bureau of Employment Services in 2003. At the Bureau of
Employment Services, Ms. Meade is responsible for implementation and
oversight of Federal and State workforce programs through the Career
Center network. Prior to that, she was the Codirector of Portland Adult
Education from 1990 to 2003.

Ms. Meade has more than 30 years' experience in adult education,
teaching, career counseling, and administration. She has taught in the
K-12 public schools, was Dean of Women at Kents Hill School, and was an
Education Specialist in literacy at the Maine Department of Education.
Ms. Meade has a master of science degree and a certificate of advanced
study from the University of Southern Maine.

**Jacqueline Millspaugh** is currently the Director of Treatment and
Recovery for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance
Abuse Services and is responsible for the areas of employment services,
psychiatric rehabilitation services, housing and homeless services, and
clinical documentation training. In addition, Ms. Millspaugh currently
serves as the Chair of the Oklahoma Governor's Interagency Council on
Homelessness. She received her master's degree in education, in the area
of community counseling, from Central State University in Edmond,
OK. Ms. Millspaugh is licensed as a Professional Counselor in the State
of Oklahoma. She has worked in the behavioral health field for 16 years,
in outpatient, inpatient, and residential settings. She has worked with
a variety of populations, including children; adolescents; adults;
families; and specialized populations, including adults with mental
illness and homeless individuals and families. 

**Sandra Miyoshi** has been administrator of Hawaii State Homeless
Programs for 11 years. She has been facilitator of the Hawaii Policy
Academy for 3 years and also facilitates the Hawaii State Interagency
Council on Homelessness. She previously served as Director of Government
Affairs for the Hawaii State Chamber of Commerce, specializing in tax,
housing, and land use planning. Ms. Miyoshi's prior community services
include board member of the State Council on Mental Health, board member
of the Neighborhood Board No. 2, facilitator of the Great Diamond Head
Cleanup for 6 years, and member of the School-Community Based Management
team for Kaiser High School.

**Norma Owen** is a recognized speaker, facilitator, and consultant in
workforce and workplace development for businesses and communities. As
founder of Avadon ([www.avadon.biz](http://www.avadon.biz/)), Ms. Owen
is armed with more than 20 years of management, human relations, people
development, and business development experience; she brings a wealth of
innovation, understanding, and experience to her audiences and clients.
Combining this real-world achievement with a passion for learning and
teaching others, she is a pioneer in the field of e-learning and has
taught at the community college and university levels to help further
the foundation for success for anyone looking to succeed. Ms. Owen
utilizes and is known for her unique talents in devising strategic
solutions based on current technology, to create a whole new style of
e-courses and workforce\
training solutions for today's world.\
\
Ms. Owen is actively involved in the community through programs that
focus on emerging and untapped workforce and workplace initiatives.
Since 1999, she has involved herself in workforce development
initiatives for those in transition and crisis. She currently serves as
a Team Leader for the Raleigh 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, the
Community Relations Chair for the National Association of Women Business
Owners, and a Volunteer Coordinator on the board for the Apex Sports
Authority. Ms. Owen was honored as a Woman Extraordinaire by Business
Leader Magazine in 2005 for her community and business initiatives.

**John Rio** is a Senior Program Associate at Advocates for Human
Potential (AHP) and Codirector of the Chronic Homelessness Employment
Technical Assistance Center supported by the U.S. Department of Labor
(DOL). He also provides the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration with supported technical assistance (TA). He has more
than 30 years of experience in rehabilitation and recovery services,
supportive housing, and homeless assistance services. His experience
includes developing HUD-financed housing, operating mental health
inpatient and outpatient services, and directing employment service
programs that have helped people with complex needs to maintain their
housing and to pursue their life goals. Before joining AHP, Mr. Rio was
a senior staff member of the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH)
where he directed national employment initiatives and worked on public
policies related to employment and supportive services for homeless
people with co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disabilities.

Mr. Rio's work has focused on developing materials; delivering TA and
training; and designing strategies to help increase the capacity of
supportive housing and service organizations to offer employment
services to formerly homeless people with disabilities, educate
government about more work encouraging social policy, and assist
supportive housing and service providers on innovative programming. He
recently coordinated a U.S. Department of Education, Rehabilitation
Services Administration Special Project grant to CSH to link the
supportive housing industry and the vocational rehabilitation system in
New York City. Mr. Rio has been Codirector for an RSA supported Career
Advancement initiative in Chicago. He also initiated career advancement
initiatives in Columbus, OH, and Bridgeport, CT, with funding from the
Ford Foundation and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Mr. Rio facilitated the development of the New York Works demonstration
project to increase employment among people on supplemental security
income with serious mental illnesses. This was a collaboration between
the New York State (NYS) DOL and the Social Security Administration
under the Systems Partnership Initiative. He led the CSH team as one of
the two research sites under contract with NYS DOL. He was also a key
leader in the development of the NYS Medicaid Buy-In Program, securing
its passage in the State legislature and the implementation of the new
health care coverage for workers with disabilities. He recently
completed a series of trainings at One Stop Career Centers on inclusion
of homeless people with disabilities as part of a CSH team under
contract with NYS DOL through the State's Work Incentive Grant.

**Ruth María Samardick** is the Director of the Department of Labor's
(DOL) Homeless Assistance Programs. Ms. Samardick is DOL's first
Director of Homeless Assistance Programs. She advises the Secretary of
Labor and the Assistant Secretary for Veterans' Employment and Training
Services on the employment of persons who are homelessness. Previously,
she was the Director of Programmatic Policy in DOL's Office of the
Assistant Secretary for Policy. Ms. Samardick holds a bachelor's degree
in finance and economics from the University of Texas at San Antonio and
studied graduate economics at Rice University in Houston.

**Gary F. Shaheen** has worked in the field of rehabilitation-based
employment services development for more than 26 years. His work
includes 17 years with the New York State (NYS) Office of Mental Health
(MH), including 10 years as the Central Office Director for Vocational
Services. In that position, he served on a number of Governor's
Interagency Committees for Employment of People with Disabilities
together with representatives of the State Department of Vocational
Rehabilitation (VR) and other agencies. He continued to collaborate with
VR to increase access to its services by people with psychiatric
disabilities as the Director for Social Economic Development with one of
NYS's largest nonprofit rehabilitation agencies. He served on the
interagency review committee for the renewal of the State MH/VR
Memorandum of Understanding and helped mental health and homeless
services agencies obtain status as VR vendors.

As Managing Director at Advocates for Human Potential, Inc., Mr. Shaheen
is responsible for program design and implementation, organizational
development, establishing community partnerships and collaborations,
supported employment, and social enterprise development for people with
disabilities, those transitioning from welfare to work, and those who
are homeless. He was a major contributor to and Senior Editor of *Work
as a Priority-A Resource for Employing People Who Have a Serious Mental
Illness and Who are Homeless* (Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration \[SAMHSA\], 2001). Mr. Shaheen served on the
planning committee and presented at the National Summit on Best
Practices for Mental Health in the Workplace, sponsored by the
Department of Health and Human Services, SAMHSA, and the President's
Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities (Washington, DC,
2001). He was the Project Director for the 2-year Center for Mental
Health Services Community Action Grant for Systems Change, which
developed community partnerships, including State VR and Labor, for
supported employment for people with psychiatric disabilities. He was a
Project Manager and is now a lead technical assistance (TA) staff member
for the national U.S. Departments of Labor- and Housing and Urban
Development-funded Chronic Homelessness Employment Technical Assistance
Center, supporting five demonstration projects that are providing
mainstream jobs and permanent housing for people who are chronically
homeless. Mr. Shaheen is a designated Workforce Development Consultant
to the NYS Department of Labor, is the lead training/TA consultant for
all NYS Disability Program Navigators, and recently completed a training
program for One Stop Career Center staff members on increasing access to
mainstream employment for Workforce Investment Act-eligible youth. He
also conducts training on behalf of the Cornell University Program on
Employment and Disability for staff members of the Social Security
Administration, Departments of Vocational Rehabilitation, and program
providers and was a presenter on collaborative employment program
development at a 2002 World Health Organization Conference on Mental
Health in London. He is a 2003 National Rehabilitation Association
Switzer Scholar.

**Laura Thielen** is the Executive Director of the Affordable Housing
and Homeless Alliance in Honolulu and is currently a student at the
University of Hawaii in the Master's Program for Social Work. The
Alliance's latest project is the Next Step Project, a temporary
transitional shelter located in Honolulu. More than 300 individuals and
families live at the shelter and are provided with a variety of social
services. Ms. Thielen has worked as the Project Coordinator and Acting
Project Director for the Kalihi-Palama Health Center's Health Care for
the Homeless Project. She worked at the Health Care for the Homeless
Project for more than 6 years, starting out as an outreach worker. She
grew up in Canada and California and finished her undergraduate work at
Dominican College in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ms. Thielen has worked
with homeless individuals and families in Sacramento, San Francisco, and
Hawaii since she was 15 years old. She has worked on legislative issues
with policy makers and with the public and private sector to raise
awareness regarding homelessness and to promote positive solutions to
ending homelessness in Hawaii. Ms. Thielen has worked extensively on the
Hawaii Action Plan to End Homelessness, the Hawaii Interagency Council's
Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, the Policy Academy on Families
Experiencing Homelessness, and the Statewide Continuum of Care. She sits
on some local Boards of Directors, including the Community Assistance
Center and Harm Reduction Hawaii. Ms. Thielen is dedicated to the goal
of ending homelessness and preventing future homelessness in Hawaii
through community involvement and political will.

**Elizabeth Winegar** has more than 17 years of public service in both
State and local government. She began her years of service in the Ohio
Senate serving as a policy analyst. Ms. Winegar has served in many
different capacities within the Ohio Department of Human Services such
as a Legislative Liaison, a Medicaid Project Manager, and a Project
Manager, facilitating change management for Workforce Development. She
was also a Workforce Investment Board Director responsible for all
facets of the Workforce Investment Act. In her current role as Assistant
Deputy Director for Program Initiatives for the Office of Workforce
Development, Ms. Winegar provides oversight for the programmatic
initiatives and liaisons with various policy teams, boards, and
councils. She is a graduate of Capital University in Columbus, OH, with
a degree in political science and marketing.

**David Wertheimer** founded Kelly Point Partners (KP^2^) in 2000 and is
a Principal Consultant with KP^2^. KP^2^ works to promote recovery in
the lives of persons living with multiple disabilities and facilitate
increased effectiveness and efficiency among public and private sector
service systems. KP^2^ provides consultation, training and technical
assistance to States, counties, and municipalities on a broad range of
human service system issues, with a focus on systems integration
initiatives involving homelessness, mental health, chemical
dependency/substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, and the criminal justice system.

Mr. Wertheimer has worked in a variety of capacities in the mental
health field for more than two decades. Between 1990 and 2000, he served
in King County (Washington) government developing and managing mental
health services for persons with chronic and severe mental illnesses and
co-occurring substance use disorders. From 1993 to 1997, he directed the
King County ACCESS Project, a federally funded research and
demonstration project focused on homelessness and severe mental illness.
From 1997 to 2000, Mr. Wertheimer oversaw the integration of King
County's mental health and substance abuse treatment systems and
development of jail and court diversion programs as Systems Integration
Administrator for the [Department of Community and Human
Services](http://www.metrokc.gov/dchs/). In this capacity, he also
developed a [regional
initiative](http://www.metrokc.gov/dchs/mhd/excellence.htm) to promote
excellence in public sector services.

As a clinician, Mr. Wertheimer has developed subspecialties in working
with sexual minorities and counseling persons experiencing posttraumatic
stress. As an agency administrator, Mr. Wertheimer served as Executive
Director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian [Anti-Violence
Project](http://www.avp.org/) (AVP) from 1985 to 1990, establishing the
first clinical services on the east coast for lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender survivors of bias-related violence, sexual assault and
domestic abuse. The AVP remains the largest social service agency in the
United States providing specialized services to lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender crime victims.

Mr. Wertheimer is a graduate of Haverford College, Yale University
Divinity School and the GAINS Center for People with Co-Occurring
Disorders in the Justice System and serves as faculty to the National
Drug Court Institute. He is a member of numerous boards and advisory
groups, including the Board of Directors of the Downtown Emergency
Service Center (Seattle), Christopher Housing (Seattle), Shirley Bridge
Bungalows (Seattle), Enquiry, Inc. (Langley, WA), and Friends of Guemes
Island (Skagit County, WA).