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The 2024 Poverty Summit, presented by the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, marked the 60th year of the War on Poverty, the national commitment that led to the formation of the Shriver Center, and featured a special guest Matthew Desmond, author of Poverty, By America.
Matthew Desmond, a Princeton professor and author of Poverty, By America and Evicted, mapped out the roots of poverty in the U.S., why it persists, and what to do about it. Before all the accolades, he grew up poor in Arizona. “I think that’s where it started for me. I think these processes of seeing my family being pushed and stressed by poverty drove this question inside of me, which is why? Why is this?”
His speech left the crowd at Convene in Willis Tower energized. He made a persuasive case that poverty abolition is within our grasp and begins with narrative change.
Matthew Desmond
MacArthur “Genius” and Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond is the author of the instant #1 New York Times bestseller Poverty, by America and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize winner Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Praised as “an extraordinary feat of reporting and ethnography” by The Washington Post, Evicted transformed our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving a uniquely American problem. His latest, Poverty, by America, has been praised by the New Yorker as “urgent and accessible” and by Esquire as “another paradigm-shifting inquiry into America’s dark heart.” Drawing on history, research, and original reporting, the book reimagines the debate on poverty, and makes a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it. Desmond is the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology, and the founder and principal investigator of The Eviction Lab at Princeton University. Desmond is a New York Times Magazine contributing writer, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New Yorker, and The Chicago Tribune.
Eviction is a national crisis: 7.6 million renters face this threat annually, with single parent households affected the most. Ensuring housing as a human right for all people will require policy changes at the local, state, and federal level. Our panel focused on solutions and strategies, from ensuring access to quality housing, increasing the supply of affordable homes, and eliminating barriers to choice of housing.
Kate Walz, Associate Director of Litigation, National Housing Law Project
Kate Walz is a national expert on federally-assisted housing preservation, fair housing, crime-free and nuisance property ordinances, the Violence Against Women Act, and the intersection of the criminal legal system and housing access. Previously, Kate led advocacy and litigation efforts at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law for almost 20 years.
Avalon Betts-Gaston
Executive Director, Illinois Alliance for Reentry and Justice
Avalon Betts-Gaston is a wife, mother, daughter, Chicago native, non-licensed attorney, ordained minister, and passionate advocate for dismantling, changing, and building a legal system focused on healing-centered justice including harm reduction and prevention, not punishment and retribution. She is executive director of the Illinois Alliance for Reentry and Justice and the first known formerly incarcerated board chairperson for the 140-year-old faith-based organization, Community Renewal Society.
Michelle J. Gilbert
Legal and Policy Director, Law Center for Better Housing
Michelle J. Gilbert is one of the primary drafters of the Cook County Residential Tenant Landlord Ordinance. In her role, she also helped create the eviction court Early Resolution Program and manages the Chicago Right to Counsel Pilot Project. She came to LCBH with 30 years’ experience at Legal Aid Chicago, where she was a supervisory attorney in the Housing Practice Group and supervisory attorney and project director of Legal Assistance Foundation’s HIV Project.
Lilly Lerner
Executive Director, Jane Adams Senior Caucus
Since 2014, Lilly Lerner has organized tenant associations to win significant repairs, improve living conditions, renew affordability contracts, and improve conditions for over 1,530 apartments across nine buildings. She organized for and passed Chicago’s Renovation and Relocation and Senior Safety ordinances in 2019 and 2020. She is the co-founder of Tenant Education Network and the executive director of Jane Addams Senior Caucus.
Eric Sirota
Director of Housing Justice, Shriver Center on Poverty Law
Eric Sirota has spent his career advocating for homeowners and tenants in a variety of contexts. Before joining the Shriver Center, Eric was a supervising attorney in a foreclosure defense and consumer-housing clinic at the University of Illinois College of Law. He worked for Prairie State Legal Services, helping to lead their burgeoning foreclosure defense practice, and for the Illinois Office of the Attorney General Consumer Fraud Bureau, leading litigation against Safeguard Properties for their mistreatment of legal occupants of foreclosed homes.
The child welfare and foster systems include built-in racial biases that result in ill-informed decisions to remove Black children disproportionately from their parents, rather than strengthening their families through increased supports. But Black children, like all children, need the care of their parents and their communities. Panelists discussed the system’s greatest challenges and elevated actions that we can take to effect change and advance racial equity at all levels.
Anita Weinberg
Director of the Child Law Policy Institute and the Legislation and Policy Clinic, Loyola University Chicago School of Law
Anita has worked on behalf of children and families for over 35 years as an attorney and social worker. Prior to teaching at Loyola, she served as director of policy and planning for the Department of Children and Family Services Office of Inspector General. As a social worker, she directed the Resources for Permanence Project at the Child Welfare League of America in New York City.
Bonita Carr
Chief Executive Officer, Court Appointed Special Advocates of Cook County
Dr. Bonita Carr is dedicated to transforming the lives of foster children and youth in Illinois. As CEO of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Cook County, she has been at the forefront of historic gains, reshaping the landscape of foster care in Chicago and Cook County since assuming leadership in 2018. As a consultant throughout the United States on urban education, Bonita addresses common issues facing urban education.
Tina Lewis
Assistant Public Defender, Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender
Tina Lewis has been an attorney for 20 years, working primarily with indigent defendants. She began her legal career with the Office of the State Appellate Defender in Chicago and subsequently began work as a trial attorney in both Kane and Cook Counties. Currently, Tina represents indigent clients in juvenile delinquency, but has worked with adults in felony, domestic violence, and family defense courts.
Carley Riley
Associate Professor in Pediatrics, Attending Physician in Critical Care, and Director of Community Systems Science at the Michael Fisher Child Health Equity Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Carley Riley, MD, MPP, MHS, has a long-term goal to foster optimal health, well-being, and equity for people and places by co-creating interventions using innovative science within cross-sector, community-led collaborations. She has expertise in well-being, person-centered outcomes measurement, co-production, community organizing, cross-sector collaboration, and community-based improvement science. Additionally, Dr. Riley enjoys caring for patients and teaching medical students, residents, and fellows as a pediatric ICU physician.
Carmyn Tassone
Lived Experience Expert
Carmyn Tassone is a proud graduate of Northeastern Illinois University. She has obtained her bachelor of social work and is part of the illustrious sisterhood of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She has volunteered with VITAS Hospice Care, providing company to patients and their families, and with an after-school program providing a positive environment to encourage students to stay in school and further their education.
Vanessa Y. White
Director of Community & Family Justice, Shriver Center on Poverty Law
Vanessa Y. White’s career and volunteerism have centered on racial and social justice. In both Cincinnati and Chicago, she has held staff and senior leadership positions at organizations focused on family well-being, housing security, workforce development, educational access, arts inclusion, and community development. As a chief of staff for a Cincinnati City Council member, she developed eviction prevention policies, balanced development goals, inclusive constituent engagement strategies, and established a children and families cabinet.
Small businesses are huge for the economy: more than 90 percent of all enterprises in the U.S. have fewer than five employees. Creating and owning a business is a way to achieve financial stability and build generational wealth. Support for entrepreneurs, especially entrepreneurs of color, calls for better policies and more access to capital. The panelists explored strategies, tools, and assets to encourage entrepreneurism and investment in individuals and communities.
Shannon McGee, Vice President of Programs & Engagement
mHUB
Shannon leads programs and member success across mHUB — including curriculum, mentorship, member engagement, community engagement, and the Catalyze Initiative to reduce barriers to Hardtech entrepreneurship for historically underrepresented founders. Shannon brings a human-centered approach to program design and delivery, rooted in equity and inclusion. Prior to mHUB, Shannon spent her career developing grassroots and public information campaigns focused on health care, small business support and access to capital, and economic development.
Jeffery Beckham, Jr.
CEO of Chicago Scholars, Co-Founder of Reach Pathways
Jeffery Beckham, Jr., is responsible for leading the development of the Chicago Scholars organization, which serves over 4,000 first-generation and students with low income to reach their dreams to pursue a college education. Jeffery is a community leader, artist, and tech-entrepreneur known for advancing the fight for equity for youth and marginalized communities throughout the United States.
Kelly Evans
Vice President of Entrepreneurism, Chicago Urban League
Kelly strengthens small businesses and municipalities through strategic economic development. At the Chicago Urban League, she creates community impact plans to bolster local entrepreneurism. At Cresco Labs, a leading cannabis company, she partnered with community organizations and small businesses to create workforce development plans and social justice initiatives. Kelly has also led small business initiatives in her political work, both as chief of staff to Illinois Senator Toi Hutchinson and as director of economic and community development for the Village of University Park, IL.
Karen Goldner
Managing Director, Established Business Program and Services – Women’s Business Development Center
Karen Goldner leads the Established Business Services at the Women’s Business Development Center’s (WBDC) practice, providing counseling to established businesses including certified Women Business Enterprises (WBEs), and overseeing the WBDC’s WBE certification program, since 2017. Prior to joining the WBDC in 2015, Karen worked in for-profit and nonprofit organizations that serve small businesses in Indiana.
Stephanie Hickman
President and CEO, Trice Construction
After a 25-year career as a labor attorney, utility executive with Exelon Corporation, and lobbyist, Stephanie Hickman left corporate America in 2006 to acquire the small residential construction company her father and uncles had operated since 1967. She led its transformation into an award-winning utility infrastructure and commercial concrete construction firm serving Fortune 500 corporations, top 100 general and infrastructure contractors, and major public entities.
LaTanya Jackson Wilson
Vice President of Advocacy, Shriver Center on Poverty Law
LaTanya Jackson Wilson has been working for justice for nearly 30 years. Previously, she served as director of advocacy at Legal Aid of Western Ohio, where she oversaw a shift to focus advocacy on racial justice and equity and build a more inclusive and diverse organizational culture. She has worked as a public defender, attorney at UAW Legal Services, and in private practice. As vice president of advocacy, LaTanya oversees a cross-disciplinary team and work to integrate policy advocacy, community-centered organizing, and legal strategy in pursuit of systemic change. She also co-chairs Illinois’ Racial Disproportionality in Child Welfare Task Force.
For questions about sponsorship opportunities, contact Erin Dowland Kabwe, Vice President of Development, at erinkabwe@povertylaw.org or 312.809.8144.
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