Coalition of Housers Working Group

Marisa Corriea is the PHI Community Health Fellow at The Health Trust, focused on housing. Marisa holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Human Biology and gained direct service experience with families experiencing homelessness after completing her degree. This experience led them to continue working in housing and to advocate for affordable housing to better serve their community.

Born and raised in San Jose, Ingrid’s passion for social justice and equity dates back to joining her family in the fight for workers’ rights in the 1990s. Prior to joining Destination: Home, she was a case manager with Amigos de Guadalupe Center for Justice and Empowerment, a nonprofit serving the residents of the Mayfair community in East San Jose. Ingrid connected community members with resources, partnered with the Homelessness Prevention System, and helped develop Santa Clara County’s first safe parking program for families sleeping in their cars. She is deeply committed to ending and preventing homelessness. Previously, Ingrid coordinated services, and provided case management, higher education and employment guidance for at-risk students at Mt. Diablo High School in Concord. Ingrid’s passion for literature and language led her to attend California State University Northridge and Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas of El Salvador where she studied Spanish language communications. 

Affordable housing has always been a passion of Janaé’s. Having faced unsafe, unaffordable housing, it had become a personal curiosity about how there are not more affordable homes in the Bay Area. She recently completed an internship in the 2019-2020 Bay Area Housing Internship Program through NPH. She is happy to now be a full-time employee with Alta Housing, the agency that hosted her as an intern. Working in development has helped her understand that although affordable housing is crucial now, there is a lot of work that goes into providing affordable homes.

Jacklyn Joanino-Sipat currently leads the Policy, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives for the City of San José Housing Department, where she coordinates the department’s equity team and works to increase the department’s capacity to advance racial equity in its policies, processes, and programs. Her career in housing and equity began at a young age through her own lived experience of housing instability. Jacklyn has worked in city government for 8 years, and has worked in the areas of fair housing, anti-displacement, and emergency management. In her previous role as a housing policy aide for Councilmember Donald Rocha, she worked on key equity policies such as the City’s Wage Theft Ordinance, Apartment Rent Ordinance, Tenant Protection Ordinance, and Source of Income Non-Discrimination Ordinance.

She previously served on the Santa Clara County Commission on the Status of Women and the CEDAW Women’s Bill of Rights Taskforce, where she advanced recommendations to combat housing discrimination toward women with children, and to maintain housing vouchers for homeless women after incarceration. She is a member of the Board of Directors for Sacred Heart Community Services and was a previous organizer with the Disaster Support Network for the Philippines and LEAD Filipino’s Fly Pinays Leadership Summit. She is passionate about community-led policy-making and housing justice. She believes that together, we can build a beautiful future.

Fun fact: Jacklyn is a registered yoga teacher and enjoys guiding meditations.

Macy Leung joins Allied Housing/Abode Services as a Development Project Manager in 2019 to focus on developing Affordable Housing and Permanent Supportive Housing for formerly, at-risk, and chronically homeless individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area. She had previously worked with public and private sectors in roles that focused on affordable housing finance, land use economics and policies, and began her career in architecture. She is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive community, and actively support effort that provide individuals access to opportunities.

She is actively involved in affordable housing policies and advocacies, and also serves on a City’s Design Review Board. She holds a Master in Real Estate Finance and Development (Housing Concentration) from Harvard University, a B.A. in Economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara, an M. Arch in Architecture from Iowa State University.

Since 1993, Dixie has worked in the affordable housing industry and has expertise in development, finance, property operations and asset management for the single purpose of creating and preserving affordable housing. Her development career includes work vital to the creation and preservation of more than 100 projects, totaling more than $2B in total development projects. As an Associate Director in Development for Eden Housing, she manages the pipeline of new projects, acquisitions and special projects.

Why is Dixie working in affordable housing? “I believe it is a human right for every person to have the choice as to whether or not they have a roof over their heads each night. It seemed like our fellow human beings took that right for granted and more and more people found themselves with that choice taken away. It is my mission to bridge the gap between a basic human right and those who want housing. Affordability drives this choice.”

Hai is a community builder who leverages his architectural background to work with Charities Housing in San Jose as a project manager focusing on the mission of building affordable housing for very low-income families, seniors, and formerly/episodical homeless individuals. As a graduate from Pratt Institute School of Architecture, Hai previously lived and worked in New York City and San Francisco for 15 years as an architectural designer, real estate developer, and construction manager who continuously seek to build self-sustaining communities for all.

As an organizer, Neil’s personal mission is to bring together a broad coalition—across race, zip-code, religion, and age—to take on the various special interests that prevent us all from having safe, affordable, community-driven housing.

Neil has been with Working Partnerships since the end of 2019. In less than 2 years, he has been able to help mobilize our community to get important wins such as Foothill-De Anza’s nearly $1 billion bond, which will go toward creating student and workforce housing. He helped secure San Jose’s first ever commercial-linkage fee, ensuring that office developers must offset the amount of jobs brought to Silicon Valley, by contributing to affordable housing. He also assisted the regional effort to pass Prop 15, and though unsuccessful, Santa Clara County was one of the best performing in California.

He holds a B.A. Political Science and a minor in public policy from UC Berkeley, and an A.A from De Anza College, where he received a Certificate in Leadership and Social Change. He currently serves on the Boards for Cupertino for All, South Bay Youth Changemakers, and is a former Labor Commissioner for the City of Berkeley.

Neil is also a competitive gamer (mostly fighting games); he enjoys rollerblading, writing, drinking coffee with friends, running, and reading.

Max works as an architectural designer to support existing communities through the design and construction of affordable, accessible, locally anchored housing. He has a background in architecture, urbanism, user experience design, and educational programming. Max immigrated to the US and grew up in the Silicon Valley; after studying and working on the East Coast, in Texas, Tokyo, and in Europe, he is committed to strengthening the fabric of a region whose wealth grows with the collective stewardship of land, and the diversity of individuals and families who can call it home.

As Preservation and Protection Associate, Emily assists in the implementation of SV@Home’s approach to tenant protections, affordable housing preservation, and comprehensive anti‐displacement policy solutions, all undertaken in an equity framework.

Prior to joining SV@Home, Emily worked at a political consulting firm, where she had the opportunity to work on campaigns for Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Close the Gap California, an initiative to recruit progressive women to the State Legislature. From 2009 to 2017, she brought together technology startups and community groups for events at The Tech Museum of Innovation in Downtown San Jose. Outside of work, Emily volunteers as a member of the City of Mountain View’s Rental Housing Committee, a board director of the Community Services Agency of Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, and with the League of Women Voters Los Altos – Mountain View Area’s Housing Committee.

Emily holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the California Maritime Academy. She is a tinkerer and loves to look at the source code for everything. She finds great joy in exploring uncommon uses for tools and processes and her life’s work is to enable exceptional people and great institutions to change the world. Born and raised in the Bay Area by Filipino immigrants, Emily is passionate about keeping Silicon Valley an innovative, inclusive and diverse community.

Tiffany is the Advocacy Coordinator with EAH Housing. She is responsible for leading civic engagement opportunities such as Census & GOTV (Get Out The Vote efforts) for EAH affordable housing communities in California and Hawaii. She provides trainings on how to engage residents to partner organizations and their Services staff. Tiffany is passionate about having diverse, equitable, and inclusive policies that uplift resident voices. She resides in South San Jose with her family and enjoys hiking in her spare time.

Kat Wortham is the South Bay and Peninsula Organizer for the Housing Action Coalition (HAC). Her role includes tracking and advocating for more housing across the Peninsula and South Bay, and managing relationships with community partners and elected officials in those areas.

Kat joins HAC from her previous role as Director of Health & Housing at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group in San Jose, CA. In this role she led the project development work by scouting out development proposals, engaging with developers and elected officials, and advising on local strategies to produce more housing across the South Bay. In addition to her housing work on the housing portfolio, Kat led all aspects of the health policy portfolio, driving the organization’s mission for access to care and equitable health outcomes with elected and appointed officials, community partners, and member companies. Before becoming Director, Kat was an intern at SVLG on the housing portfolio where she spearheaded the 2017 Affordable Housing Tour and championed advocacy efforts on three high density, mixed-use housing developments in the South Bay.

Steven Yang serves as Housing Trust’s Director of Multifamily Lending and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Lead. In this role, Steven works with the Multifamily Lending Program team to originate and manage loans to housing developers and cultivate financing partnerships. He also leads Housing Trust’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. Prior to joining the nonprofit sector, Steven spent over a decade in corporate and commercial real estate lending, having led the underwriting, loan administration, and portfolio management functions, as well as served as a key contributor in the implementation of an affordable housing program, at a for-profit bank. He was Development Chair for a local LGBTQ+ nonprofit foundation’s board, is a Northern California Grantmaker’s (NCG) Racial Equity Action Institute alumnus, and a National Development Council certified Housing Development Finance Professional. Steven is passionate about advocating for those who can’t or won’t.