Hailey Aldrich joined the law center in June of 2022 as the Development and Communications Vista. In this role, Hailey helps share the mission and work of the Law Center with stakeholders, supporters, and donors through event planning and engages them in our efforts to end homelessness.  

Hailey is a recent graduate from Ithaca College where she graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Communications, Management, and Design, and minors in Journalism and Legal Studies. During her time at Ithaca, Hailey worked closely with the college and county chapters of Habitat For Humanity on advocacy efforts to address the growing homelessness crisis in Tompkins County. She facilitated letter writing campaigns to local representatives and organized the assembling of necessity bags to be delivered to the local tent encampment. Hailey’s passion for finding a career that helps empower and provide a voice to the voiceless solidified during her time working with YWCA NorthEastern NY where she assisted victims of domestic violence find safe shelter and housing. In her free time, Hailey enjoys performing, traveling, hiking, and binging podcasts.   

Julia Hartenstein (she/her) has been passionate about ending homelessness for the last 14 years – both personally and professionally.  She has worked alongside unhoused people to organize an art exhibit where individuals with lived experience of homelessness could showcase their artistic talents, planned memorial services for people who tragically passed away after experiencing homelessness, and served on the Advisory Board of Baltimore’s street newspaper where people with lived experience were involved at every level of the organization – from vendor to editor-in-chief. Through this work, unhoused people became not only Julia’s leaders and teachers in the struggle for housing, economic, and racial justice, but also cherished friends. Julia has a Master’s degree in Social Work with a concentration in management and community organizing. Prior to joining the Law Center as the Operations Director, Julia worked in administration and human resources for the Homeless Persons Representation Project in Baltimore, Maryland.  She truly enjoys leveraging her skills and knowledge to strengthen nonprofit organizations from the inside.  When she’s not working, you can find Julia hiking, camping, traveling, baking, and enjoying sports – especially rugby.

Sam Hozian is an anti-disciplinary transsexual multimedia producer, raised in Chicago and currently based in Brooklyn with their partner and their cat (Shark Week). Sam joined the Law Center in March 2023 as a Communications Associate for the Housing Not Handcuffs New York campaign. Bringing their experience in high-volume social media management, marketing, and design, they aim to help shift the popular narrative surrounding homelessness to one of compassion and humanization. Sam has over six years’ experience professionally producing social media content for institutions and companies such as the University of Illinois, SiriusXM, and the Queer Identities Psychology Partnership (QuIPP). Effectively connecting other trans people with accessible, trans-led mental healthcare at QuiPP through content strategizing was a major factor in their decision to leave the world of sales and join the nonprofit sector.

Sam received a public education growing up in Illinois, bounced around Oakton Community College, then transferred to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017 to complete a self-designed B.A. in Music and Media Studies. With the goal of beginning a new life and finding community in New York, they pursued and completed an M.A. in Media Studies, as well a Graduate Certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies, at The New School.

Having experienced both housing and food insecurity throughout their childhood and into early adult life, Sam passionately believes in “everything for everyone,” whether that be equitable access to housing, food, healthcare, or education. This belief is injected into and informs all of their professional and personal practices. Sam is also a film photographer, musician, audio designer, and tattoo artist—all of which are self-taught pursuits. Some of their creative projects, including on-the-ground protest photography and the documentation of Abolition Park (New York, 2020), can be found at samhozian.com.

Will Knight is a directly impacted Colombian-American immigrant, movement organizer, and litigator who has dedicated his career to advocating for the most vulnerable in our society.  As a victim of cartel violence who lost his father to the carceral state, Will began his legal career in criminal prosecution through the Truman Young Fellowship, but he found his calling at the other table, as a public defender.  

Will is now regarded among the best criminal defense attorneys in Arizona, and in his private practice he has been a courtroom advocate for the humanity of marginalized communities since the pre-Obergefell fight for marriage equality.  Most recently, Will’s counsel and leadership across a broad spectrum of civil rights cases—from pursuing justice on behalf of the victims of state-sanctioned brutality and murder, to holding Maricopa County’s top police and prosecutors accountable for politically prosecuting peaceful protestors with false charges—were instrumental in A.G. Merrick Garland’s decision to launch a D.O.J. civil rights investigation into the City of Phoenix’s violent police practices.    

Will joined the Law Center in March 2023 as its new Decriminalization Director, where he wields deep personal and professional experience combating systems of oppression to help end our governments’ inhumane treatment of the unsheltered and precariously housed in a growing national housing crisis.   

“We can’t reform unjust systems that are operating precisely how they were designed.  That’s why I consider myself an organizer and directly impacted community leader first, and an impact lawyer second.  Because to end human suffering, we need to listen most closely to those who are suffering.  We must put the people closest to the harm closest to the power.  Vulnerability is strength,” Will said.  

Will is completely publicly educated, receiving his B.S. cum laude from Georgia State University and his J.D. from Arizona State University, where he graduated second overall in his law school class.  He also sits on the Commissions on Access to Justice and Diversity, Equality, and Justice in Arizona’s Administrative Office of the Courts, teaches evidence as an adjunct professor at his alma mater, and chairs the Mentor Program Committee at the State Bar of Arizona.  

Erika joined the Law Center as Communications Associate in March 2022. She previously worked in communications and marketing with the Carey Institute for Global Good in upstate New York and was the Director of Sales and Marketing for a Hilton brand hotel prior to that. She is currently earning a bachelor’s degree in cultural studies with a focus on communications and media at SUNY Empire College with goals of covering economic issues, advocating for higher labor standards, and ending poverty and homelessness in America. Erika is also a board member for Joseph’s House and Shelter in Troy, NY, a nonprofit that offers 100% nonjudgmental housing and outreach services with a housing first approach to those experiencing homelessness across Albany and Rensselaer counties.  

“My worldview and goals have been shaped by my firsthand experiences with childhood poverty and the resulting housing and food insecurity that accompanied. Finding and qualifying for adequate services was difficult for my parents, especially with my father’s status as an immigrant with limited literacy and my mother’s struggles with addiction, highlighting for me at an incredibly young age how broken our social services are.” 

Erika will bring these experiences, as well as her passion for helping vulnerable people, to her work with the Law Center. She hopes to see a world where housing, food, and water are not considered commodities but instead are viewed as fundamental human rights.

Carlton Martin serves as the Law Center’s Pro Bono Director, responsible for handling relationships with the Law Center’s major law firm partners that annually provide over $5 million in pro bono services.

“Knowing the rights of unhoused individuals and working within my power to protect those rights are important to me. I understand that our lives are fragile. Most of us are one termination, one medical bill, or one stroke of a pen away from homelessness; therefore, we should all have empathy for those experiencing homelessness and do what is within our power to advocate for real solutions to end it.”

Carlton came to the Law Center from the Indiana Supreme Court, where he served as a Staff Attorney for access to justice issues. Moreover, Carlton previously served as a Deputy Public Defender for the State of Indiana, and as the Project GRACE Staff Attorney for the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic, where he was dedicated to resolving civil legal issues of re-entrants and homeless veterans. Additionally, he was recognized as one of Indiana’s top 15 Up-and-Coming Legal Leaders in the Law in 2019. Carlton received his B.A. in Sociology and African and African American Studies from Indiana University in Bloomington and earned his J.D. from Robert H. McKinney School of Law in 2012.

As the Law Center’s Equal Justice Works Fellow, Alex will help launch the House Keys Not Sweeps Legal Defense Clinic project (LDCs). A unique collaboration between the Law Center and the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP), the LDCs combat the criminalization of homelessness by amplifying on-the-ground legal services for unhoused people, while steering aggressive litigation and policy strategies that get to the systemic roots of homelessness. Alex’s fellowship is funded by Buckley, LLP.

Alex is a graduate of the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, where she served as a Graduate Fellow and Sorenson Fellow. She was also part of Moot Court, the Race and Social Justice Orientation Steering Committee, Outlaws, and the Race, Privilege, and Diversity Committee. Alex also organized with fellow students, legal practitioners, and community organizers to develop CUNY Law’s first course focused on the decriminalization of homelessness, to be launched in January 2022.

Along with a summer working with the Law Center and WRAP, Alex has also interned at the Center for Constitutional Rights, Community Justice Collective (Toronto, Canada), and Brooklyn Legal Service’s LGTBQ/HIV advocacy unit. Before law school, Alex helped lead the largest student strike in North America, to ensure access to higher education for all in her home country of Canada.

Katie joined the Law Center in 2021 as the Senior Youth Attorney, where she advocates for laws and policies that will help end youth homelessness. Before joining the Law Center, Katie was a staff attorney at Solid Ground in Seattle, WA providing legal representation to low-income people in administrative hearings and appeals for state public benefits. A 2006 graduate of University of Washington School of Law, Katie has also worked as the Director of Pro Bono Programs at Homeless Persons Representation Project in Baltimore, MD and served as a volunteer, board member, staff attorney and Executive Director of Street Youth Legal Advocates of Washington, an organization that provided accessible civil legal representation to homeless and at-risk youth and young adults. In her spare time, she is an avid gardener and enjoys exploring the beauty of the Pacific Northwest with her family.

Jeremy Penn, Esq., uses she/they pronouns and is a licensed attorney in the District of Columbia. She graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in May 2021. She served as Executive Editor for the Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives, 3L Delegate in the Student Bar Association House of Delegates, President for OutLaw, Georgetown Law’s LGBTQ+ student affinity group, and Treasurer for Georgetown’s student chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

While in law school, Jeremy interned with Law for Black Lives, the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, the Congressional Office of Representative Donna Shalala, and the Civil Rights Section of the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. She also served as a Research Assistant for Professor Naomi Mezey. Prior to joining the Law Center, Jeremy assisted families fleeing Afghanistan after the US withdrawal.

Jeremy graduated from the University of Miami, where she majored in Ecosystem Science & Policy, Applied Physics, and Geography with minors in Mathematics and LGBTQ Studies. She is a proud New Jersey native.

Alexandra Taggart will be working as a Data Integration Vista member at the National Homeless Law Center with a focus in building organizational capacity to contribute to equal economic opportunity and expansion. As a child her grandmother, a retired D.C. police officer, was her babysitter so she would attend District V Coffee Club meetings. Being the Co-Facilitator, her grandma spoke at most of these events in community forums and seminars discussing issues affecting the community where she lived such as: transportation, education, and development. Attending these events at an early age created Alexandra’s passion for helping others through acts of humanitarianism. As for the future, she is planning to have a socially concerned career.

Eric Tars serves as the National Homelessness Law Center’s legal director, leading its human rights, civil rights, and children’s rights programs and managing its cutting edge litigation, strategic policy advocacy, and outreach and training initiatives at the international, national, and local levels. Eric helped spearhead the launch of the Law Center’s national Housing Not Handcuffs campaign, has served as counsel of record in multiple precedent-setting cases, including Martin v. Boise in the 9^th Circuit, and is frequently quoted in national and local media, including NPR, AP, New York Times, Washington Post, and VICE News.

“My father grew up homeless, as a refugee following WWII. I believe every person deserves to be treated with the same dignity and respect for basic human rights as I would have wanted to see him and his family receive.”

Before coming to the Law Center, Eric was a Fellow with Global Rights’ U.S. Racial Discrimination Program and consulted with Columbia University Law School’s Human Rights Institute and the US Human Rights Network, where he currently serves as the vice-chair of the Network’s Board.

Eric received his J.D. magna cum laude as a Global Law Scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received his B.A. magna cum laude in political science from Haverford College and studied international human rights in Vienna at the Institute for European Studies and at the University of Vienna.

Eric also teaches human rights advocacy as an adjunct professor at Drexel University Kline School of Law.

Jennifer Toth Clary (she/her) has worked in the nonprofit sector for over 15 years, helping progressive organizations fulfill their goals. Her background includes organizing, policy advocacy, and fundraising for some of the most pressing issues of our times, including LGBTQIA equality, immigration reform and reproductive justice.

Most recently, she served as the Development & Grants Manager at the Workers Defense Project, a community based organization for low-wage, immigrant workers fighting for their right to be paid a living wage. While there, Jennifer helped organize the PowerUp Texas Fund in response to the devastating winter storms and electric grid failures of February 2021, which helped raise nearly $2 million for low income families and mutual aid organizations across Texas. In addition, Jennifer helped manage the UnDocuWorker Emergency Assistance fund, which helped distribute over $3.5 million to working families affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Over the past several years, Jennifer has focused her work on development to support progressive non-profits, through creating Major Donor campaigns, aligning progressive foundations funding priorities with community organizations, and creating pathways for grassroots supporters to focus their giving in meaningful ways. She especially loves connecting with people through well-crafted events and powerful story-telling, and also owned her own event planning and consulting business for several years.

Jennifer enjoys volunteering in her spare time, and currently serves on the fundraising committee with a community- based Women’s Philanthropy Circle that raises money for local organizations serving families across Central Texas experiencing food insecurity and homelessness. A native of Miami, Florida, Jennifer currently lives in Georgetown, Texas with her husband, daughter, and rescue dogs named after the Golden Girls.