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 serves 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 the all of the politically charged elected offices in her region (6 council offices, 2 supervisorial office, and 7 cities) to the table with providers to work together to create a better and more inclusive system. 

Kris is a person with lived experience that 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.