Our Team
The Housing Justice Collective is composed of five dynamic and passionate leaders who hold a shared vision for housing justice that is rooted in racial and LGBTQ+ justice. The HJC members have spent the past several years witnessing each other's joy, strengths and struggles in various roles and life experiences and built authentic relationships along the way. As a team, we weave our complementary experiences, skills, styles and visions together and bring an intentional team design to our approach.
Rivianna Hyatt
She/Her/They/Them
Owner-Worker
Prior to Housing Justice Collective, Rivianna worked for True Colors United, where they worked on building the power of young people with lived experience in the movement to end homelessness. They were a founding member of the National Youth Forum on Homelessness (NYFH), where they provided technical assistance for the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project (YHDP), helping communities all over the country build youth action boards. Formerly, they did outreach and positive youth development work at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. They served on Youth Collaboratory’s Board of Directors and are a graduate of Mills College and City College of San Francisco. They reside in Brooklyn, NY.
Kevin Solarte
He/Him
Owner-Worker
Kevin is a systems and policy analyst with more than a decade of experience designing and implementing cross-system initiatives focused on youth and family homelessness, affordable housing, child welfare, and domestic violence. Kevin has held a number of roles across non-profit and foundations all focused on activating communities to transform the system meant to serve them. At the federal level, he also served as a special assistant, in the Office of the Secretary at HUD, where he contributed to the federal interagency plan to prevent and end youth homelessness, the development of the Final Rule implementing the housing protection in the Violence Against Women Act, and the creation of strategies to improve the educational outcomes of children living in HUD assisted housing. Kevin holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s in Social Work from Illinois State University. He resides in New York City.
Niki Paul
She/Her
Owner-Worker
Niki Paul has spent the past 15 years serving roles where she had the privilege to emerge, grow and evolve how she contributes towards housing justice. She brings experience providing HUD technical assistance, training facilitation, organizing local homeless response systems, housing policy analysis, program design and organizational operations. Niki finds her work joy in facilitating spaces that hold space for authentic connection and shared learning. In addition to project work, Niki contributes her operational and administrative magic to support the organization's day to day functions. Niki lives in Austin, TX with her beautiful queer family and community where she is most often found cooking up something in the kitchen while singing along with Beyonce.
Josephine Pufpaff
She/Her
Owner-Worker
Josephine Pufpaff is one of five in a collective of curious, joyful, sometimes intense professionals all in on systems change, coordinated community responses and nerdy over housing and homelessness policy to advance racial equity and housing justice for community members most impacted by housing instability and homelessness. Josephine has over 20 years experience in various roles and positions of power within homeless and housing response and has continued to grow in her abilities, perspective and values through experiences providing technical assistance, training and education, research, facilitation and policy advocacy. Josephine shows up in relationship to the work through her life experiences as a Taurus, West African, immigrant, Black, Mother, Woman and friend who loves champagne, jumpsuits, dance floors, travel, and time with loved ones.
The longer the journey, the more profound its challenges, the more it changes all who endures it. - Maghra
Sarah Hunter
She/Her
Owner-Worker
Sarah is a big-picture strategist with experience at the local and federal levels. She looks across all the moving parts of a system, community, or set of efforts and turns them into collective vision. Specializing in housing and homelessness solutions, Sarah formerly served as Policy Advisor to Secretary Julián Castro at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. She led the original design of the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program, and spent several years as a technical assistance provider, learning and emerging alongside communities in its implementation. Previously, Sarah spent time as a community organizer, leading lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) youth policy and practice shifts, and centering the experinces of young people. If you need your motorcycle repaired, a puzzle figured out, or a ridiculous metaphor for some complex problem you’re experiencing or solution you're seeking to design, she’s your go to. She is currently based in the Washington, DC Metro area.