Highlights from the Housing Justice Team
About this blog
This is a part of an ongoing series to highlight members of the Housing Justice Team, a group of people with lived experience of housing instability or houselessness who want to change our collective housing future.
The group started without a predetermined outcome, and what emerged organically was a space where advocates across the country chose to rely on each other for support and shared-learning while dreaming up our own and our collective impact on our world. Too often, the experience of being someone with lived experience in this work can be isolating and difficult, and we sought to carve out a space where we could dream about a future where we each could grow, make change, and thrive.
Grace Lee Boggs reminds us, “We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it's never a question of 'critical mass.' It's always about critical connections.” We’ve had the opportunity to experience it together– it’s through these critical connections that we get to live into a part of justice in our time.
Hear about Tiffany’s Project:
Title: Authentically Me: Self Guided Racial Justice Workbook & Series
Purpose: This mixed media racial justice workbook is a five step tool aimed to be used to facilitate both personal and collective reflection, learning, growth, healing, and action. This tool will help to build an individuals and groups knowledge on equitable practices and assist with individual reflection and implementation of those practices. Each individual will engage in critical thinking, reflection, art justice & healing, and group and individual activities to put concepts learned into practice.
For an individual this tool will promote self awareness, healing, and internal growth through self reflective journaling and activities. It will also help to grow one's confidence to enter spaces authentically as themselves and equip them with the tools and confidence needed to strategically unpack and work against practices that uphold oppression and inequity; promoting liberation for people of color.
During and after completion of the workbook individuals should walk away feeling like they have begun their journey of healing; feeling empowered to embrace their authentic selves; have grown in their knowledge around equity, race, and the impacts of systems and institutions on individuals and groups of people; and can identify actions they can take and resources. Participants will be empowered to critically challenge and drive culture shifts in spaces and promote equitable authentic engagement.
I plan to implement one learning series for the community and another for a business or nonprofit who is trying to advance racial equity internally utilizing this tool and additional resources.
Audience: This tool is for those who have a personal interest in personal growth in diversity, equity, inclusion, and racial justice practices and healing from the impacts of racial trauma; those who work in the Health & Human Services Field or work directly with those impacted by systems; those who are directly impacted by systems; and to enhance workplace competency and DEIA practices.
My Why: As a black, immigrant mother, with personal and professional experience navigating systems as well as workspaces I recognized that what it meant for me to show up looked different as I entered different spaces. One thing that stood out to me is my constant need to check in with myself so that I can preserve what it means for me to show up as my authentic self, while allowing myself the opportunity to grow. The question that I found myself asking myself is, “am I being asked to change myself because it's an opportunity to grow or is this a manifestation of white supremacy?” I recognized that there were factors outside of me that influenced what the expectations of me showing up meant. So as I was given the opportunity to develop any project this for me felt like an obvious idea. I hope to empower others to critically challenge and drive culture shifts in spaces and promote equitable authentic engagement.
My Ask: I am in need of funding, artists, research assistants, people with lived experiences of engaging with systems, and professional experts to help to bring this tool to life. I'm a firm believer that solutions should be driven by those impacted. I also believe in the power of data and self awareness. For more information on details of the project or if you are interested in supporting in other ways, please email me at aidenanthonyllc@gmail.com. To support with funding this project please donate to the gofundme created for this project.
Visit our website at Aidenanthonyllc.org connect with our social media at:
LinkedIn: Tiffany Haynes
About Tiffany Haynes :
Tiffany Haynes is a Black Jamaican mother of one. She's lived in the states for over 26 years. Tiffany has over 16 years of lived and professional expertise of systems and its impacts on marginalized communities. She has over sixteen years of lived expertise and professional knowledge in the foster care system, almost a decade of lived and professional expertise on youth homelessness, and expertise on many other issues due to her intersectional identities and diverse work experience. Over her career, Tiffany has connected people, organized strategies, and mobilized marginalized populations affected by the system. What sets her abilities and work apart is her passion to create authentic, meaningful, and lasting connections. She has an unwavering belief that people impacted must be at the forefront to guide and inform the changes they want to see and values transparency when engaging with others. While lifting the experiences of system-involved, immigrant, LGBTQIA+, black & brown, parenting youth in care, & other marginalized youth & young adults, Tiffany continues to seek out & create opportunities for those with lived expertise to lead & inform change.
Tiffany is currently a Lived Experience Engagement Specialist with the Capacity Building Center for States where she develops products, consults, and provides technical assistance to child welfare professionals at a federal, regional, and state level. She is also an Executive committee member on the National Youth Forum on Homelessness; a member of A Way Home America's policy team; a member of Housing Justice Collective's Housing Justice Team; an advisory board member for Advocates for Richmond Youth; member of the National Coalition on Housing Justice; freelance consultant; and Founder & CEO of Aiden Anthony LLC.
Her child welfare expertise includes, but is not limited to, providing consultation, technical assistance, research, facilitating workshops, and product development. Tiffany co-developed the outreach and social media campaign for the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 in Virginia; collaborated with Virginia’s Commission on Youth and Virginia Department of Social Services to expand services and serve in an advisory role; served as co-chair of the development of infrastructure in prevention planning for Virginia; served as Advocacy & Engagement Manager for a state policy organization & co-chair for Virginia’s Racial Truth and Reconciliation Coalition; and provided insight on service and assistance to immigrant, pregnant & parenting, and LGBTQ youth in care.
Tiffany’s homelessness expertise includes providing consultation, training, program assessment, technical assistance, and designing & implementation of research studies on the national, state, and local level. She served on a review team for a global campaign to end LGBTQIA+ youth homelessness for the United Nations; co-developed and led the development of policy agendas, priorities, and budget recommendations while serving in national youth-led spaces to include the executive committee of the National Youth Forum on Homelessness, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Family Framework Project, and A Way Home America’s policy team. She also has experience serving on multiple coalitions and advisory teams including serving as co-chair for policy advocacy on Virginia’s Youth Housing Stability Coalition and for the Advocates for Richmond Youth, both of which she is a founding member.
Tiffany has co-created, organized, and led youth and lived experience engaged spaces on the local and national level including during her time as a NYFH member and member of Housing Justice Collective's Housing Justice team, where she built the power of folks with lived expertise. In the past, Tiffany served as the Director of Homebuyer & Community Engagement with a local community land trust where she provided community education on the Community Land Trust model, a limited equity cooperative homeownership opportunity; worked to build trust with the community, especially marginalized communities to include communities of color; and maintained and developed new relationships and partnerships with those who connect with or are the target population of the CLT. She built the capacity of the organization's internal racial equity and designed and implemented program evaluation for the organization. Tiffany has also designed products that help communities respond to family homelessness during COVID-19 by centering racial equity and the power of people with lived experience.
Tiffany has earned her bachelor’s degree in paralegal studies from the University of Richmond, an associate in business administration with a major in paralegal studies from John Tyler Community College, and a career studies certificate in paralegal studies from John Tyler Community College. Tiffany also holds a precertification in broad family and consumer science.