Elaine MacPherson (she, her, hers)
Elaine joins this cohort of fellows to leverage her passion for volunteerism, youth development, and housing policy toward a more impactful career in policy advocacy. Elaine attended the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she studied Sociology and History, with an emphasis on poverty policy. While in Santa Barbara, the visible housing crisis is what first galvanized Elaine to volunteer in and later study housing work, ultimately writing a senior thesis on the first federal law to address American homelessness: the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act. Later that year, she briefly worked with the National Homelessness Law Center to support their communications and development team. After working for several years as a server and bartender to make a dent in her student loans, Elaine joined AmeriCorps VISTA in 2016, moving to Tucson to work with Compass Affordable Housing as a program developer and community gardener. Her year of service built on her skills in community collaboration, which led her to then join Our Family Services as a Case Manager to run a homeless prevention program. In this role she helped launch the coordinated entry system for homeless prevention services county-wide. Elaine has continued this work as a volunteer, and now professionally in her new role as the Continuum of Care Project Coordinator for the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness. When not working or volunteering, Elaine loves to watch movies, binge television and read on the couch with her dog Niles.