Our Team

Sean Green has a passion for bettering our community. In addition to serving as chair of Shelter Now, he serves as chair of the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods (NECN), a member of Portland’s Development Review Advisory Committee (DRAC), and chair of the DRAC Process Improvement and Technology Subcommittee. He believes we can improve outcomes through applying a systems thinking approach centered on respect for people and continuous improvement/learning. By harnessing the knowledge of the people closest to the issue (e.g. those experience houslessness and service provider staff working on the frontlines) we can generate and test improvement ideas. Sean is the co-founder of Aforma and holds a Master of Public Administration from Portland State University. Sean loves spending time in nature and cooking.

As a long-time Portland resident, Carol Turner has devoted her personal and professional life to ensuring that Portland is a vibrant and healthy city. In a volunteer capacity, Carol served as an elected school board member of Portland Public Schools for twelve years and was chair for three terms, in addition to being president of the Oregon School Boards Association. She then was on Mayor Vera Katz’s policy staff for seven years as Education Advocate for the City of Portland. After leaving the City, Carol owned her own business, working as a consultant and facilitator in developing effective non-profit and governmental boards and teams. In recent years, Carol has devoted her energies with a focus on systemic issues of poverty in our region, as co-founder of both Interfaith Alliance on Poverty and Shelter Now. She and her husband are proud parents of two adult children and five grandchildren. Carol also loves hiking, reading and live theater.

Les Wardenaar is currently chair of the Interfaith Alliance on Poverty, a 14 member coalition among Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish Congregations in NE and Downtown Portland. He is former board chair of Portland Backpack, and holds leadership roles at Fremont United Methodist Church. Les is retired from Xerox Corporation, where he served as Director of Sales Development. He has been a resident of the Portland metro area for 40 years.

Eboni Brown is Executive Director of Greater Good NorthWest. She hails from sunny Orange County California and some how found herself in not so sunny Portland. A Project Manager turned Nonprofit Diva, Eboni spends her free time volunteering at a couple local organizations geared toward empowerment and radical change, travels every chance she gets, stirs up trouble with her daughter Olive, gets into anything to do with the beach or river, having a dance party, dressing up, and really enjoys meeting new folks. A lifer in the social service world and she can’t imagine working in any other field.

David Dickson retired in 2010 from a career leading fundraising and marketing in higher education. He has long been a student and practitioner of community and organizational development. In January, 2020 he published On Purpose, a book featuring the life stories of 34 Oregon nonprofit leaders.

In addition to writing, David has devoted his retirement years to community service. He serves as co-chair of the Portland Downtown Neighborhood Association’s Homeless/Houseless Team and was a founder of The Good Neighbor Project, where 30 downtown Portlanders visit our unhoused neighbors each week, delivering survival items and building relationships of trust and respect.

Tom Hickey joined Shelter Now while serving as chair of the Bridgeton Neighborhood Association, after noting the lack of coherent government policy towards hygiene, security or other social supports at the burgeoning tent camps across the Portland Metro region. He currently serves as chair of the Housing Solutions Committee of the Sellwood-Moreland Improvement League. Tom believes that no urban camp can thrive without forming bonds of mutual purpose with the greater community in which they exist, and that bringing this message to the Portland system of neighborhood associations is a powerful tool to this goal.

Matt Huff: I am the pastor of Portland Central Nazarene Church and Director of Agape Village. I have been in ministry for 15 years and we have been in Portland for the last 8. I have a wife and 2 kids (12 and 10). Loving my neighbor has been a passion of mine ever since I served as an intern and assistant chaplain at Kansas City Rescue Mission while I was in seminary. So, when we started pastoring at Central we couldn’t just watch our houseless neighbors struggle we decided we needed to do more. That’s when we started Agape Village and being more intentional with loving our neighbors - housed or unhoused. When not working I love anything outdoors - skiing, mountain biking, hunting, fishing, camping and anything else that takes us outside.

Mary Jaron Kelley has over 20 years of experience working for North Portland Neighborhood Services, Office of Community and Civic Life, City of Portland. Her work focuses on connecting Portlanders to build and find real solutions for social change. She has expertise in public involvement and outreach processes and principles. She also has experience in community grant making and support and development of grass roots organizations. The North Portland Doers is a project that Mary founded with community organizations working and advocating for people experiencing houselessness, food injustice, housing instability and behavioral health intersectionality. The North Portland Doers meet in quarterly forums sharing their work in the community, to network, exchange resources and reveal the positive and powerful stories of how individuals and groups are creating social shifts in their communities.

Matt Perkins brings his experience of having recently been homeless and his experiences in various shelter models to the team. He has worked and volunteered in the community over the years from serving coffee at a soup kitchen to running a shower truck, leading a Street Roots outreach team during the pandemic to his recent role as a case manager at a motel shelter. Undiagnosed PTSD led to his becoming homeless in Southern Oregon in 2015. The lack of resources there brought him to Portland, the quality of resources here kept him homeless until recently. He continues to advocate for innovative solutions to our homelessness epidemic, as the solutions currently offered lend more toward exacerbating homelessness rather than getting people out of the perpetual cycle of poverty and housing insecurity.

Keith is founder and chair of Shelter Portland, a non-profit spin-off from Shelter Now. Portland is in a homelessness and housing state of emergency. Keith founded Shelter Portland to end the most devastating effects of this emergency, unsheltered homelessness.

Keith has been president & CEO of TITAN Freight Systems, a transportation company with operations throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia since 2004.

He began his career at NBC in New York City. Has lived in New York, London and New Zealand. Keith obtained his MBA at University of Portland, BS at OSU and attended PCC and Roosevelt High School.

An experienced advocate for the environment, sustainable business practices and homelessness, Keith is honored to be on the core team of Shelter Now and advocating for a humane approach to ending unsheltered homelessness in Portland.

Helen Ying’s professional career spans 30+ years as a mathematics teacher, high school counselor, high school vice-principal, and hearings officer. In May 2021, she was re-elected for her 2nd term to represent Multnomah County as a Multnomah Education Service District Board Director.

Helen’s service reaches a broad community in various capacities of organizations that rally for causes of youth, education, civil rights, leadership development, health care, and social justice issues, including the Chinese American Citizens Alliance (C.A.C.A.), Portland State University Foundation, A Home For Everyone, We Can Do Better, Lan Su Chinese Garden, and Lone Fir Cemetery Foundation.

Helen holds a BS in Mathematics and a Master’s degree in Education and Counseling, both from Portland State University.

Her vision statement is “Connecting the dots for a better world” and her mission is “To engage and empower people to take action in improving their communities.”

Barbra (Barbie) Weber is a committed advocate on issues regarding hygiene access for all, environmental justice and housing rights. Co-founder and Coordinator for Ground Score Association (a Peer-lead initiative of Trash for Peace). Oregon Poor People's Campaign Coordinating Committee member, Central Eastside Together board member, Hazelnut Grove villager, and Shelter Now board member. In February 2021 piloted the GLITTER program (Ground Score Association Leading Inclusively Together Through Environmental Recovery), a sustainable tent side trash service for people living outside. She has been highly involved in many organizations and advocacy groups including Street Roots, Sisters of the Road, Right 2 Survive, Western Regional Advocacy Project, Gather Make Shelter academy member, etc.

Barbra is an effective communicator with a gentle demeanor. Her motto in life is to do as little harm as possible to all life around her, to make every effort to assist in the betterment no matter what race, religion, gender identity, social status, mental health, criminal history, age, etc. And to fight with all her might to tear down stereotypes and to end hate that divides communities to their core.