About Us

Our Center

The Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative brings together expertise and skills from across Portland State University and the country to collaborate with people experiencing homelessness, advocates, service providers, leaders, and other stakeholders.

Our goal is to reduce homelessness and its negative impact on individuals, families and communities with an emphasis on communities of color through solutions-oriented research and evidence-based science.

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Marisa Zapata, Center Director

Dr. Marisa Zapata is an Associate Professor of Land-Use Planning at Portland State University and Director of PSU's Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative. As an educator, scholar, and planner, Dr. Zapata is committed...

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Jacen Greene, Assistant Director

Jacen Greene is co-founder and assistant director of PSU's Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative, a multidisciplinary research center dedicated to addressing issues related to homelessness. He graduated Beta...

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Greg Townley, Co-Founder

Dr. Greg Townley is a professor of community psychology at Portland State University and co-founder of PSU's Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical-Community Psychology from...

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Lisa Hawash, Co-Founder

PSU History & Experience Lisa Hawash is an Associate Professor of Practice and Master of Social Work Online Option Coordinator at Portland State University. She is also a co-founder of PSU's Homelessness Research &...

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Maude Hines, Co-founder

Fields: Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture, Early Twentieth-Century American Literature and Culture, African-American Literature, Cultural Studies, Children's Literature, Gender and Literature, Critical...

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Paula Carder, Co-Founder

Paula Carder is a professor with the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health and Director of the Institute on Aging at Portland State University and co-founder of Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative. She received...

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Sergio Palleroni, Co-Founder

Professor Sergio Palleroni is a faculty member and director of the Center for Public Interest Design in the School of Architecture at Portland State University and co-founder of PSU's Homelessness Research & Action...

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Franklin Spurbeck, Senior Research Assistant II

Frankie is a senior research assistant at PSU’s Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative. Frankie supports the center’s projects through data wrangling, analysis, and visualizations; literature collection and...

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Tania Hoode, Program Assistant

Tania Hoode provides administrative support for PSU’s Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative, making sure all the details behind the scenes are addressed professionally, accurately, and on time. She also offers...

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Kathleen Conte, Senior Research Fellow

Kathleen has a background in Public Health policy and implementation research and a strong passion for community-engaged research. She has worked with communities here in Oregon and internationally on a range of health...

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Website: www.kacymckinney.com
Instagram: kacy.mckinney
Email: kmckinney@pdx.edu

Kacy McKinney

Artist Scholar in Residence

Kacy McKinney is a self-taught visual artist and scholar/educator based in Portland, Oregon. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of Washington. She works in comics, drawing, illustration, and textile design.

She is the creator of Changing the Narrative: Stories of Student Homelessness and Housing Instability (2022) and the follow up project Epilogue. She edited and designed the comic book Uprooted: Voices of Student Homelessness (2024). These community-based collaborative research projects use comics to build empathy to change how we talk, teach, and think about homelessness and poverty.

She is currently Artist-Scholar in Residence at the Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative at Portland State University. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Independent Publishing Resource Center.

Todd Ferry

Co-Founder

Todd is an award-winning architect and educator internationally recognized for his work in public interest design. Formerly with Portland State University’s Center for Public Interest Design, Todd focuses on participatory design to create impactful civic spaces, housing, and community planning. A Co-Founder of the Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative, he is a thought leader in alternative shelter and tiny house design, with work featured in Architectural Record and The New York Times. Todd holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Georgia and a Master of Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently the Studio Director at Pendulum - Mid Atlantic.