12th Annual Fair Housing Symposium
Symposium Agenda:
8:45 - 9:00 am
Check-In
9:00 - 10:15 am
Trends in Fair Housing: Disability, Criminal Background History, and LGBTQ+
Location: Main Conference Room
Moderator: Elizabeth Sanchez, Project Sentinel Assistant Fair Housing Director
Speakers:
Jaime Rush, Managing Attorney, Aids Legal Referral Panel
Liza Cristol-Deman, Esq., Brancart and Brancart
Michael Baldwin, Founder and CEO, Legacy Outreach Alliance
Katalina Zambrano, Executive Director, LGBTQ Collaborative
Patty Castillo Davis, Advocacy Director, Rainbow Resource Center
10:15 - 10:30 am
Break
10:30 - 11:15 am
Appraisal Bias
Location: Main Conference Room
Moderator: Josie Fulton, Project Sentinel Fair Housing Coordinator
Speakers:
Liza Cristol-Deman, Esq., Brancart and Brancart
Julia Howard- Gibbon, Supervising Attorney, Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California
11:15 - 11:30 am
Break
11:30 - 12:15 pm
Licensed In-Home Childcare Provider Law and Fair Housing
Location: Main Conference Room
Moderators: Briana Lucio & Nitara Duthie, Project Sentinel Civil Rights Investigation Coordinators
Speakers:
Laurie Furstenfeld, Director of Legal Advocacy, Childcare Law Center
Julia Forte Frudden, Sr Project Manager and Evaluator, Childcare Law Center
12:15 - 1:30 pm
Lunch | Keynote Speaker | Kerstin Arusha Award
Location: Main Conference Room
Keynote Speaker:
Eli Moore, Program Director, Othering and Belonging Institute, UC Berkeley
Award Presentation:
Carole Conn, Project Sentinel Executive Director
1:30 - 3:00 pm
Break Out Session 1
Disability Rights
Location: Classroom
Moderator: Cynthia Hurtado, Project Sentinel Fair Housing Coordinator
Speakers:
Celia McGuinness, Esq., Derby, McGuinness & Goldsmith, LLP
Todd Espinosa, Esq., Todd Espinosa Law
Fair Housing 101: An Overview
Location: Main Conference Room
Moderator: Sara Menashe, Project Sentinel Fair Housing Coordinator
Speakers:
Lark Ritson, Esq., Project Sentinel Fair Housing Director
Jaime Rush, Managing Attorney, Aids Legal Referral Panel
Art Tapia, Project Sentinel Staff Attorney
Josie Fulton, Project Sentinel Fair Housing Coordinator
Joshua Anh, Project Sentinel Fair Housing Coordinator
Elizabeth Sanchez, Project Sentinel Assistant Fair Housing Director
Ana Andrade, Project Sentinel Community Outreach Coordinator
Jakob Uriarte, Project Sentinel Fair Housing Coordinator
3:00 - 3:15 pm
Break
3:15 - 4:15 pm
Break Out Session 2
Housing Equity and Source of Income Discrimination
Location: Classroom
Moderator: Elizabeth Sanchez, Project Sentinel Assistant Fair Housing Director
Speakers:
Kelly McEwlain, Lead Research Analyst, Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation
Nathan Ho, Senior Strategic Advisor, Santa Clara County Housing Authority
Fair Housing Enforcement and Litigation
Location: Main Conference Room
Moderator: Lark Ritson, Esq., Project Sentinel Fair Housing Director
Speakers:
Juan Gamboa, California Civil Rights Department Attorney
Liza Cristol-Deman, Esq., Brancart & Brancart
Cathy Ross-Perry, Region IX Enforcement Division Director, HUD
4:15 - 4:30 pm
Closing Remarks
Location: Main Conference Room
Speaker:
Carole Conn, Project Sentinel Executive Director
4:30 - 6:30 pm
Reception (Hors d'oeuvre’s and light beverages)
Location: Main Conference Room
Meet the Speakers:
Michael Baldwin Sr.
After serving 26 years of a double-life sentence Michael was released with a specific goal: to use his life experience to bring healing and understanding to traumatized and marginalized individuals/ groups, to bring equity to the community, to redefine Justice, and mend broken relationships. To achieve this, he started MBS Consultants to educate and train teachers, law enforcement, civil servants, and paraprofessionals to be the bridge between those who serve and those in need of services; and founded Legacy Alliance Outreach to serve youth and formerly incarcerated from a heart for humanity by fi l l ing the gaps in services provided and services needed. Michael helps professionals increase their intellectual capacity to think strategically while being emotionally connected to their own humanity for those they serve and work in collaboration with. He emphasizes the principle of looking to be understanding before being understood as the basis and core value in his teaching and presentation style by using mindfulness and restorative practices in a didactic manner that challenges those he comes in contact with to peak outside of their comfort zone. Legacy Alliance Outreach was born as a direct result of the lack of services Michael received in his youth as well as when he returned after his period of incarceration. His experience positioned him to uniquely understand the needs of disadvantaged youth and the needs of those who are formerly incarcerated. Now as a community member he is doing what he wished could have been done for him. A few of his most recent accomplishments: 2022 Modesto Hometown Hero, 2021 CMHACY Innovative Program Award, Published Poet, Presenter - 48 th Annual Conference Western Society Of Criminology, Keynote Speaker - University Of Michigan - University of North Carolina, Key Presenter - International Voices for Global Change & Policing, Fashion Model and his proudest accomplishment being a grandfather.
Eli Moore
Eli Moore is a Program Director at the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley and does community-based research on housing, race, policy and planning. He recently facilitated the creation of the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority's social equity framework, a guiding document for the state's first regional housing agency. His work with community groups in the Bay Area and beyond has focused on preventing displacement, ensuring equitable development, and analyzing the root causes of social inequities in housing. He is the co-author of Roots, Race and Place, a short book on the history of race and housing in the Bay Area pre-1967.
Liza Cristol-Deman
Liza Cristol-Deman is a partner at Brancart & Brancart, a San Francisco Bay Area law firm that represents plaintiffs in housing discrimination cases in federal and state courts throughout the United States. She joined the firm in 1997 after graduating from Stanford Law School. Since then, she has successfully litigated hundreds of fair housing cases involving discrimination based on race, national origin, gender (including sexual harassment), sexual orientation, disability, familial status, and other protected characteristics. Through litigation, advocacy, and training, she has helped strengthen fair housing protections in cases involving a range of important issues, including sexual harassment in housing, housing discrimination against people who are undocumented, neighbor versus neighbor harassment, and racially-biased home appraisals. In 2014, she was lead trial counsel in a certified class action involving violations of California’s residential security deposit statute. The jury found in favor of the class and awarded over $2.25 million in damages. She has also served as counsel of record in hundreds of significant fair housing settlements and trial victories, and in many published decisions illuminating rights under the fair housing laws. Liza has been honored by the State of California Department of Fair Employment and Housing with the “Civil Rights Hero Award,” and by local fair housing agencies throughout California. She is a frequent speaker at fair housing conferences, law schools, and state bar trainings, and served as one of the contributing authors of the Rutter Group deskbook entitled California Fair Housing and Public Accommodations (The Rutter Group 2014). She was also a co-author of the fair housing chapter of the recently published Nevada Real Property Practice and Procedure Manual (Nevada Bar 2021).
Laurie Furstenfeld
Laurie Furstenfeld is the Director of Legal Advocacy at the Child Care Law Center. She has been a social and racial justice advocate for families and children for more than 20 years and draws from her previous experience as a social worker to inform her work today. At the Law Center, she has crafted policies that increase the availability of affordable, enriching child care, ensure parents keep their child care, and improve housing and land-use protections for family child care home providers. She has co-led successful campaigns to pass four state laws, the strongest of their kind in the U.S. Laurie received her JD degree at University of California Davis, her master’s degree in Social Work at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds a Public Service Law Program Certificate.
Julia Forte Frudden
Julia Forte Frudden is the Senior Project Manager and Evaluator at the Child Care Law Center. She has been an early childhood advocate for over seven years and has been in the field of education for over a decade. At the Law Center, she manages the Homelessness Prevention project, which focuses on helping family child care providers enforce and expand their housing rights. Previously, as Director of Community Advocacy of the Law Center, Julia co-led the legislative campaign to pass SB 234, the Keeping Kids Close to Home Act, which strengthened family child care providers’ housing protections. Julia received her master’s degree in Public Affairs from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Jaime Rush
Jaime joined ALRP’s staff as a Staff Attorney in 2006, assisting people living with HIV in an array of civil legal matters including housing, credit, employment, and end-of-life planning. As Managing Attorney since 2018, she supervises program staff and manages ALRP’s Law Clerk program, while continuing to provide direct legal assistance to individual clients. Jaime has particular expertise in advocating for people living with HIV around fair housing laws, public subsidy programs, and local protections under the San Francisco Rent Ordinance. She received her B.A. in Sociology from Wesleyan University and earned her J.D. from the University of California College of Law (formerly, U.C. Hastings). She lives in San Francisco with her husband, two daughters, and adorable rescue mutt, Oski.
Celia McGuinness
Celia McGuinness’ devotes her practice to litigating on behalf of people with disabilities whose abilities to live independently have been impeded by discrimination. Celia takes on landlords, business, government, and any institution that does not take seriously the rights of disabled people to live free and equal in society. She has tried approximately 30 trials in federal and state court and appeared multiple times in the Ninth Circuit and the California Court of Appeals. Her cases of first impression include C. L. v. Del Amo Hosp., Inc., holding that the ADA prohibits certification requirements for service dogs (992 F.3d 901 (9th Cir. 2021)), and Tamara v. El Camino Hospital, prohibiting blanket exclusion of service dogs from a locked psychiatric ward. 964 F.Supp.2d 1077 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 2, 2013). She is a founding partner at Derby, McGuinness & Goldsmith, LLP, where she practices on the cutting edge of disability rights law. She specializes in discrimination in housing, employment, the public sector, public accommodations like businesses, and in schools. She also is a mediator who takes appointment privately and through the Alternative Dispute Resolution panel of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. Ms. McGuinness served two terms on the California Commission on Disability Access, appointed by Governor Jerry Brown. Ms. McGuinness also sits on the General Order 56 Advisory Committee for the Northern District, which advises the court about protocols for managing ADA cases. Ms. McGuinness has been a visiting clinical professor at the University of San Francisco Law School as well as an adjunct professor of Moot Court and Legal Writing at Hastings College of the Law. She has published scholarly and opinion articles in, e.g., Hastings Women’s Law Review and California Lawyer Magazine. She frequently presents to business and consumer groups, and at CLE seminars. She is a member of the Disability Rights Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association, and the Alameda Contra Costa Trial Lawyers Association.
Todd Espinosa
Todd Espinosa is a Bay Area attorney in private practice focusing on the representation of plaintiffs in housing discrimination matters and other complex litigation. His clients include individual tenants and fair housing enforcement organizations. Previously, he represented tenants as a staff attorney with the National Housing Law Project in Oakland. He represented consumers and investors in class action litigation at a private law firm in San Francisco. Todd also served as a deputy attorney general in the Consumer Law Section of the California Department of Justice. Todd received his law degree from Harvard Law School and his undergraduate degree from Harvard College. He also holds a master’s degree from the U.C. Berkeley Department of City and Regional Planning.
Juan Gamboa
Juan is a staff attorney at the California Civil Rights Department, prosecuting discrimination matters in both the employment and housing contexts. He is driven by his desire to safeguard civil rights in California through effective and meaningful enforcement actions. Juan’s personal and professional experience informs his sense of justice and guides his motivation to continue to help those who have been disenfranchised.
Kelly McElwain
Kelly McElwain has spent the past decade demonstrating the impact of affordable housing and advancing preservation efforts through research and improved data accessibility. She is the lead research analyst at the Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation (PAHRC) where she has examined affordable housing preservation needs and programs, exposure of housing to natural hazards, and initiatives affordable housing providers are engaged in to boost resident outcomes. She makes affordable housing data more accessible by organizing webinars, consulting, and building mapping tools to help practitioners apply her research to their work. Her work has helped localities track their affordable housing stock, make a case for preservation efforts, evaluate their investment strategy, and assess exposure to severe weather events. She recently co-authored How PHAs are Addressing Equity, a report that examined PHA-led initiatives to improve equitable outcomes. Before joining PAHRC, Kelly assisted non-profits on research projects, donor stewardship, and grant writing as an intern and consultant. Kelly holds a Master of Public Policy and a Certificate in Survey Research from the University of Connecticut, and a B.S. in policy studies and biotechnology from Syracuse University.
Nathan Ho
Nathan joined the Santa Clara County Housing Authority in 2022. As Senior Strategic Advisor, Nathan focuses on developing and sustaining strong partnerships with public, private, community, and other external stakeholders. He oversees and drives special projects that supports our residents, real estate development efforts, and community engagement. Nathan’s background is in affordable housing, land use policy, strategic communications, and state and local housing policy and legislation. Prior to joining the Housing Authority, he was a senior policy advisor for Mayor Sam Liccardo in the City of San Jose, leading citywide housing and homelessness efforts. Under the Mayor, Nathan was instrumental in San Jose’s Measure E passage in 2020, resulting in $140 million generated in its first two years in local affordable housing and homelessness prevention funds. Prior to the Mayor’s Office, Nathan led housing policy for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, where he co-led the statewide Propositions 1 & 2 campaign in 2016, resulting in $6 billion in state affordable housing funds. He got his start in housing at Eden Housing, a well-established affordable housing developer and owner-operator in California. Nathan previously served on the Boards of Housing Trust Silicon Valley and SV@Home. Prior to housing, Nathan spent a decade in nonprofit administration for several health and education organizations in Boston. He got his Bachelors degree at UCLA in history and communication studies and completed graduate studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston in dispute and conflict resolution.
Julia Howard-Gibbon
Julia Howard-Gibbon is the Supervising Attorney at Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California (FHANC). She represents FHANC in fair housing litigation and administrative complaints. She is currently representing clients, as well as FHANC, in three appraisal bias cases in Oakland and recently settled a lawsuit alleging appraisal discrimination in Marin County. Prior to becoming the supervising attorney, she was a staff attorney at FHANC for more than two years. Since receiving her undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies from UCLA in 2005, she has fought for the rights of tenants and those being excluded from housing, including members of protected classes. She began her legal career in 2012 as an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow at the New York Legal Assistance Group where she represented low-income New Yorkers who had been impacted by Superstorm Sandy, including tenants and homeowners facing housing discrimination. She later became a staff attorney in the Civil Justice Practice at Brooklyn Defender Services, assisting tenants facing eviction or denial of housing based on arrest, immigration status and/or family court involvement. As a public interest attorney, she has represented many people in accessing or retaining housing and/or public benefits. She has also worked on many housing policy issues, testifying at City Council and Board of Supervisor hearings, participating in panels and policy task forces, and working with local lawmakers to protect and strengthen housing laws affecting members of protected classes.
Katalina Zambrano
I am the Executive Director of Somos Familia Valle Central a program of the Central California LGBTQIA+/2S Collaborative. Growing up as a visibly trans youth in the Merced area during the 1990s was a really difficult time for any youth to transition in a small town. With limited resources for me and my family, we found it impossible to find any type of LGBTQ affirming support for myself which created a huge strain at home. I use my past involvement in the local adult and juvenile criminal justice, and child welfare systems to passionately channel my lived experiences to help create safe spaces and bring resources to our community to help them find support and safety while they find their footing in their queerness. I have been conducting LGBTQIA+/2S cultural humility and competence workshops in the Merced and Stanislaus County area since 2015. Through the Collaborative I regularly conduct such workshops to homeless shelters, local police departments, the Stanislaus Sheriff's department, public health, and local school districts.
Caroline Peattie
Caroline Peattie is the Executive Director of Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California (FHANC) and has been with the organization since 1996. FHANC is an independent nonprofit organization that provides free comprehensive fair housing counseling, complaint investigation, and assistance in filing housing discrimination complaints. Ms. Peattie oversees the agency’s programs and grant work; helps plan systemic fair housing investigations and methodologies; provides input on agency complaint development and settlement negotiations; and advocates for affirmatively furthering fair housing in the communities that FHANC serves. Prior to her association with FHANC, she was the Executive Director of Sentinel Fair Housing in Oakland. She graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Philosophy and earned a Masters in the Management of Human Services at the Florence Heller School of Social Welfare at Brandeis University. Ms. Peattie is a board member of the National Fair Housing Alliance and has been working in the fair housing field since 1987.
Cathy Ross-Perry
Catherine Ross-Perry is the Region IX Enforcement Division Director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, where she oversees all of HUD’s fair housing investigations throughout the states of Arizona, California, Hawai’i, and Nevada, as well as in the U.S. Pacific Territories. Her staff is responsible for investigating, analyzing, and conciliating cases, as well as preparing appropriate matters for the issuance of a charge of discrimination to initiate litigation. Catherine has over 20 years of experience working in the field of Fair Housing. She has handled numerous complex matters involving alleged discrimination in rental, sales, insurance, and mortgage lending transactions. Prior to her tenure at HUD, Catherine was the staff attorney at Fair Housing of Marin (now called Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California), a private, non-profit fair housing agency, where she advocated on behalf of homeseekers, tenants, and others facing discrimination in a variety of housing situations. Previously, Catherine was the Associate Director of Appellate Advocacy Programs at Boston University School of Law, where she also taught in the Legal Research and Writing Program. Earlier in her career, Catherine was an associate at a civil litigation law firm in Los Angeles. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her J.D. at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. Outside of work, Catherine spends time volunteering at San Quentin State Prison, and also enjoys hiking, reading, songwriting, and trying to learn to play the harp.