Board
- Board President: Terese Howard
- Board Secretary: Coral Feigin
- Treasurer : boona cheema
Tristia Bauman (At Large) Tristia went to law school to fight against the systems that create poverty and inequity. She has spent her legal career working for the liberation and dignity of all people, with a focus on ending the criminalization of homelessness. She began her legal career in the courts and jails as a public defender in Miami, and later as Senior Attorney at the National Homelessness Law Center. She is currently Directing Attorney of housing at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley.
boona cheema (Treasurer) was the Executive Director for Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency, where she has served for nearly 30 years. Over the years, she has also served on boards of Directors for Oxfam America, Seva Foundation, Food First, Eureka Communities and California Homeless and Housing Coalition.
Gerardo Gomez (At Large) Is a family and youth counselor and have been a homeless rights activist for almost 20 years, became a board member at the National Coalition for the Homeless at the age of 20, co-founded a homeless service organization at Saint Mary’s College of CA. Organized the first homeless candlelight vigil in all of Chile in 2004 and have organized previous homeless candlelight vigils in Los Angeles. Been fortunate to interact with homeless individuals throughout the States, South Africa, Mexico City and Chile. Currently a board member at Los Angeles Community Action Network and have participated in 3 Homeless World Cups (Brazil, Mexico City, Chile) as a correspondent for Community Connection, LA CAN’s community newspaper.
Steve Diaz (At Large) Steve is a long-time activist in Los Angeles. Most of his work has focused on Housing and Houselessness issues in the Community of Skid Row. Over the last 21 years Steve was an organizer, lead organizer, and Deputy Director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, a WRAP founding member.
Terese Howard (President) has been fighting with houseless people for rights and housing since 2011. She founded Denver Homeless Out Loud along with a group of housed and unhoused people to fight the Camping Ban in 2012. In 2022, she founded Housekeys Action Network Denver together with houseless people to continue the fight – focusing more on the fight for housing as directed by houseless people. She has spent these 12 years fighting for the rights, needs, and voice of houseless people together with housed and unhoused people – including running the Right to Rest Act in the state legislator, bringing lawsuits against the City for violating houseless people’s property rights, starting the tiny home villages, surveying thousands of houseless people, holding down winter survival encampments with houseless people, fighting the closure of houseless hotels, collecting the voices of over 1000 houseless people about housing needs and priorities, and much more.
Coral Feigin (Secretary) comes from the rural east coast of Canada. She is a community organizer who does work around prison abolition, queer and trans liberation and harm reduction. Coral was WRAP’s community organizer for many years. She now lives in Tennessee and co-leads the collective Press On South which advances the practice of movement journalism.
Theresa Imperial (at large) graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2008. Since then, she has worked with Manilatown Heritage Foundation and Bill Sorro Housing Program. She is the Executive Director of the Bill Sorro Housing Program (BISHoP). She currently sits on Eastern Neighborhood Citizen Advisory Committee in San Francisco, an advisory body that gives recommendations on the implementation of the Eastern Neighborhood Area Plan to city agencies. In addition, she is a member of Migrante SoMa/TL, a neighborhood chapter of Migrante International that promotes the rights of Filipino overseas workers.
Monica Beemer, she/they (at large) served as Executive Director of WRAP core member group Sisters of the Road for 12 years and also served as Station Co-Manager of KBOO Community Radio. She is on the board of the National Welfare Rights Union and Social Workers Ending Poverty Together (SWEPT) and works as projects coordinator with Street Books bike-based street librarians in Portland, Oregon. Monica has worked closely with WRAP for 15 years helping out in whatever way is needed. During COVID Monica built forty-five 30-gallon handwashing stations and organized an army of good people to maintain them with delicious soap, water and community care. Monica is from both rural (Newport) and urban (Portland) Oregon and is passionate about community organizing and individual and systems change for the good of the people.
Candy Smallwood (at large) Candy Michelle Smallwood grew up in San Francisco public housing. Her lived experience has led her to advocate for safe, stable, and affordable housing for everyone. An artist, Candy thrives on storytelling as an advocacy tool and recently taught a seven-week seminar at Berkeley Law on the criminalization of poverty and advocating for our clients using their stories.
Jade Arellano (they/them) (at large) – Jade grew up in Hemet, a semi-rural small town in Southern California’s Inland Empire. They currently work as a National Organizer for Infrastructure Development at Right to the City Alliance (RTTC), a national alliance of more than 90 community-based racial, economic, gender & environmental justice organizations growing grassroots power to halt gentrification and displacement and build democratic, just, and sustainable communities. Prior to joining RTTC, they were the Organizing Director at the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP). At WRAP, they worked in collaboration with grassroots organizers across the West Coast to build a deeply accountable national movement to decriminalize homelessness, and to create a narrative counterpoint to the dehumanization of unhoused community members in popular media. Jade is currently based in San Francisco on Ramaytush Ohlone land, and in their spare time they love to geek out on social theory, box, and spend time with their beloved pitbull, Tashi.
Staff
Art Hazelwood (Minister of Culture) does artwork and graphic design for WRAP. He is a well-known artist with a long history of working on issues related to social justice. Staff and volunteers have been using his artwork, charts and poster around the country to help spread WRAP’s message.
Joemae Santos (Member Organizer) Joemae is a first generation queer Pinay with an organizing background in various issues and topics ranging from workers rights, immigrant advocacy, and anti dictatorship organizing. She is the current pointperson for Malaya Movement San Francisco which asserts and defends democracy, human rights and sovereignty for the Philippines. Joemae joined WRAP in the fall of 2022 and has since connected with community organizations from cities across the west coast to strengthen the movement against the criminalization of the poor.
Lynn Lewis (Grants Coordinator) works at the intersection of community organizing, oral history and popular education. In each of these areas, her focus is on supporting organizing by homeless and poor folks. She is the founding ED and civil rights organizer of Picture the Homeless (PTH). Working at PTH for 17 years, she helped develop PTH’s organizing methodology, including integrating participatory action research into PTH’s organizing campaigns. Her responsibilities also included raising funds to support PTH’s work and she has a successful track record as a development consultant for other grass roots organizations. She is a mom and a grandma and like many working class people, she and her family have experienced homelessness. Her collection of nine oral history interviews with women organizers and cultural workers, Women Who Change the World (City Lights, August 2023) includes an interview with WRAP board chair Terese Howard. She was a 2022/2023 NEH fellow, working on the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project.
Madeline Lockhart (Admin/Finance Director) Madeline Lockhart (she/her) comes from Mississippi, and is currently located in Texas. With over 8 years of experience in bookkeeping and personal finance, Madeline graduated from Lincoln Memorial University in 2018 with a Master of Business Administration, and continues working tirelessly to expand her experience beyond “just the numbers.” She is knowledgeable, detail-oriented and an intellectual leader who has found success through her ability to navigate the details and produce great work. Madeline is a servant-leader, serving her community and advocating for social change via over a decade of membership in Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated. In her spare time, Madeline loves cooking and loving on her fur babies.
Monica Beemer (Interim Development Director) Monica Beemer, MSW/she/her/they/them, served as Executive Director of WRAP core member group Sisters of the Road for 12 years and also served as Station Co-Manager of KBOO Community Radio. She is on the board of the National Welfare Rights Union and Social Workers Ending Poverty Together (SWEPT) and works as projects coordinator with Street Books bike-based street librarians in Portland, Oregon. Monica has worked closely with WRAP for 15 years helping out in whatever way is needed. During COVID Monica built forty-five 30-gallon handwashing stations and organized an army of good people to maintain them with delicious soap, water and community care. Monica is from both rural (Newport) and urban (Portland) Oregon and is passionate about community organizing and individual and systems change for the good of all.
Paul Boden (Executive Director) became homeless at the age of 16. He began volunteering at a drop-in shelter in San Francisco in 1983, eventually becoming a program director there. He then worked as a case manager in a supportive hotel program for mentally ill people. Paul served as Executive Director of San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness for 16 years and was a founder of the Community Housing Partnership, a nationally recognized permanent housing corporation with optional supportive services. He served as president of its Board for 10 years. Paul was also a board member of the National Coalition for the Homeless and co-chair of its civil rights and grassroots organizing workgroup. He has received dozens of community awards during the last twenty-five years and recognition from the city and county of San Francisco, the State of California, and the Congress of the United States. Paul regularly writes articles and op-eds and travels throughout the country giving talks and trainings.
