Leah is the Coordinator for the Chicago Housing Initiative, a citywide coalition that works to amplify the power of low-income Chicago residents to preserve, improve, and expand subsidized rental housing, promote community stabilization, and advance racial and economic inclusion. Leah began organizing in 2005 with residents at a large low-income housing development on the south side of Chicago threatened with demolition and has been working to promote decent, stable, safe affordable housing for all ever since. Before taking the position with Chicago Housing Initiative, Leah organized for several years with Southsiders Together Organizing for Power (STOP), staffed economic development programming and resource development at the South Side Community Federal Credit Union, organized with National Peoples Action around foreclosures, and worked as a fundraiser for several Chicago nonprofits.
