The Experts

Kris Freed has over 25 years of experience in homelessness and housing policy development, creative and innovative strategies, program design and implementation, system operation and evaluation. In addition to her work at Impact, Kris most recently served as the chief programs officer for one of the largest service providers in Los Angeles. In her free time, since 2015, Kris has been brought in by many of our industry’s leading experts to assist with projects which focus on providing training workshops, program/system reconstruction, and evaluations.  

Kris is recognized as a specialist in designing homeless services and was integrally involved in the development, implementation and roll-out of the Family Coordinated Entry System (CES) in Los Angeles—the first coordinated system in LA.  She is often called upon to by leadership to talk through ideas and asked to share her strategies to make improvement to the system. Since 2014, Kris has been a member of the Continuum of Care Board, which is responsible for oversight of $140 million dollars of federal funds. Additionally, Kris sat on the Los Angeles CES Policy Council which is responsible for setting policies and procedures for how the system operates within Los Angeles County. Some of the strategies that Kris has been able to move forward at these tables include the newly adopted “Transfer Policy” or what she likes to call, the Upstream/Downstream Policy. This policy ensures those that we have housed into the wrong intervention can easily move into the right intervention without having to return to homelessness. Kris also lifted the need to create specificity within staffing roles to ensure we are meeting the needs of participants at each stage of the housing process. She is also known, as the “Leverage Queen” ensuring that we more strategically utilize our resources while building in the supports that teams need to be successful. 

In her agency role, Kris leveraged her analytical and managerial skills to effectively manage over $60 million dollars in budget, 425 staff and over 80 contractual requirements. Kris sees it as her responsibility to coach and mentor her team (and partners) to build the institutional knowledge that is needed at every level of the complex homeless services sector. She also understands the need to bring on and develop smaller agencies looking to move into homeless services. Several of those organizations now take on direct funding contracts and are seen as leaders in this work. During her tenure as chief program officer she created the Service Planning Area (SPA) Steering Committee for the region she oversees, as well as mentored her neighbor SPA to do the same. This committee is responsible for bringing leaders across all sectors of the region, to collectively set goals to end homelessness together. Kris served as the Chair of her region and Co-Chair of her neighboring SPA. Kris understands the that trust, transparency, equity and inclusion create the pathway for people to work together. She used those skills most to bring all of the politically charged elected offices in her region (6 council offices, 2 supervisorial offices, and 7 cities) to the table with providers to work together to create a better and more inclusive system. 

Kris is a person with personal experience of homelessness and truly understands just how important housing is to helping people recover. She is committed to improving the quality of life for people in crisis. She holds a BA in Sociology (CSULA) and a Master’s in Public Administration from California State University, Northridge. She will often say that what’s more important than any degree is common sense paired with empathy—to which she brings to every part of her work. 

Veronica Lewis is a recognized systems leader in Los Angeles County and statewide in the Homeless and Housing Services, Substance Use Disorder Support and Reentry sectors. Until July 2025 she served as the Director of the Homeless Outreach Program/Integrated Care System Division of Special Service for Groups (HOPICS) for 14.5 years where she oversaw 130 million dollars in annual funding for multi-service programs including: mental health, harm reduction and substance use disorder treatment, reentry support, emergency homeless services and interim housing, permanent housing programs and sites, and trauma-focused services.  Under Veronica’s leadership HOPICS pioneered many innovative interventions that were taken to scale, expanded integration of primary and behavioral health care with homeless/housing services, built the capacity of the provider community of collaborative partners, implemented robust employee-focused wellness programs- HOPICS Cares, housed more than 12,000+ households, and helped hundreds of thousands of individuals and families on their journeys through equity-focused efforts to restore hope, a sense of humanity and opportunities. The long-lasting impact of HOPICS grew significantly under her leadership including an annual budget increase of 3100% and a 15-fold expanded workforce. 

Veronica has worked tirelessly as an advocate to improve and coordinate homeless services in LA County- in particular the Service Planning Area Sixth Region (SPA 6). Veronica is the founder of the thriving SPA 6 Homeless Coalition. She has played an integral role in the development of the ever-expanding LA Continuum homeless system(s) of care. In 2014 Veronica led and developed the one-of-a kind SPA 6 Family Crisis Housing Network that formed in response to the changing system of care for homeless families in LA County. The Network consists of a blend of homeless and housing providers that provide short to medium term crisis housing for families working toward permanent housing- and still keeps 300+ families with children off of the street every night in interim housing present day. Due to her leadership and advocacy HOPICS opened the first publicly funded interim housing location for transgender women and non-binary individuals in Los Angeles. Veronica has represented the interest of SPA 6 and the LA Continuum of Care (CoC) as member and Chair of the CoC Board and Coordinating Council. Veronica is also a Los Angeles County Public Social Services Commissioner.

In her daily work Veronica has and continues to advocate for racial equity and honest dialogue about ways to improve the overwhelming number of health, economic, carceral and housing disparities for black, indigenous and other people of color in LA County.  She deeply understands the intersection of race, homelessness, behavioral health and the criminal justice systems. She has been a key part of the Los Angeles Black People experiencing Homelessness (BPEH) efforts that produced the nationally recognized report and recommendations and still working to provide support the implementation of the recommendations through her role on the Policy Committee. Veronica is also a member of the USC Homelessness Policy Research Institute (HPRI) Racial Equity Steering Committee.

Veronica served as the Chair for two years of the Los Angeles Care First and Community Investment or CFCI (Measure J) Advisory Committee and led the process of developing a recommended transformative spending plan that resulted in LA County funding $287 Million for the first two inaugural years (FY 22-23) of investment into alternatives to incarceration and addressing racial inequities; and she still serves as a Committee Member. CFCI funds diversion and reentry services, de-carceration of LA County jails, primary health, behavioral health, housing, economic development, and youth support. She is a member of the Steering Committee for the Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership (LARRP).

In addition to her contribution to local Los Angeles City and County systems and policies, Veronica also lends her expertise to help shape policies, best practices and projects at the state and national level through her participation as a Councilmember on the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH); a former member of the Collaborative Justice Courts Advisory Committee for California Courts Judicial Council (CJCAC) and Co-Chair of CJCAC’s Racial Equity and Inclusion Workgroup; National Alliance to End Homelessness- Capacity Building Network; National Research Council- Transportation Research Board for the Airport Cooperative Research Program Project 03-59 Panel that helped develop best practices nationwide to address homelessness at airports; and as a former member of the California Department of Health Care Services Proposition 64 Advisory Group where she helped shape program design and utilization of more than 60 million for the Youth Education Prevention, Early Intervention and Treatment Account (YEPEITA).