Sherri Downing

Sherri Downing, B.A., is a Senior Program Manager for Advocates for Human Potential, the Deputy Director of SAMHSA’s Homeless and Housing Resource Network, and the Director of AHP’s HUD Community Compass technical assistance contract. In that capacity, she is managing a national technical assistance initiative focused on using employment as a strategy to prevent and end homelessness. She is nationally recognized for her expertise in addressing homeless and housing issues in frontier and rural environments. She co-authored the Rural Housing Toolkit, written to help CMS Money Follows the Persons (MFP) personnel successfully transition MFP participants from institutional care to their rural and frontier communities. Recently, Ms. Downing led prototype systems-building sessions to help local service providers create interagency collaborative partnerships between agencies focused on intimate partner violence and those focused on serving people with HIV. Prior to her work for AHP, Ms. Downing coordinated the Montana Governor's Council on Homelessness, led the development of the state's 10-year plan to prevent and end homelessness, and served as the first state team lead for Montana's SOAR project. As principal and owner of Sherri Downing Consulting, Ms. Downing worked on capacity building on a range of topics that lead to and sustain homelessness, including domestic and sexual violence, poverty, behavioral health disorders, trauma, and lack of affordable housing.