Welcoming New Board Leadership for 2025

With gratitude and excitement, we’re announcing SJPLA’s 2025 board and board leadership.

Welcoming Dr. Andrea Garcia to Our Board

We are honored to welcome Dr. Andrea Garcia to the SJPLA Board. As a Physician Specialist at the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health and Chair of the Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission's homelessness subcommittee, Dr. Garcia brings deep expertise in addressing structural determinants of health for the American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) community. Her work spans homelessness, placemaking, data equity, narrative change, and policy advocacy. As an alum of SJPLA's inaugural Racial Equity Initiative Fellowship and a recent Durfee Stanton Fellow, Andrea has deep connections to our community.

New Board Leadership Team

We are excited to announce Eric Ares and Helen Leung as our incoming Board Co-Chairs for 2025. Eric brings over two decades working alongside communities to create solutions to homelessness and poverty. Currently serving as Housing and Homelessness Director for City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, Eric's deep roots in South Central Los Angeles and extensive experience in movement-building spaces are invaluable to our work.

Helen Leung, Executive Director of LA Más and an alum of our Systems Change Fellowship, joins Eric in co-chair leadership. Helen's journey of building collective power in Northeast Los Angeles, combined with her extensive policy experience from local to federal levels, brings crucial experience to our board leadership.

We are also pleased to share that Vera deVera will continue her service as Treasurer, and we welcome Margaret Hardin as our new Secretary.

Gratitude

We extend our deepest appreciation to Amber Sheikh, who is concluding six years of dedicated board service. Through her time on the board, Amber helped shepherd SJPLA through transformative organizational changes, including our new investment and purpose policy on the Finance Committee and our name change to Social Justice Partners. Her steady guidance and passionate commitment to our mission have been instrumental in strengthening our foundation for the future.

We also want to thank Chris Ko and Sam Prater for their leadership as Board Co-Chairs in 2024. Their partnership and guidance have been invaluable, and we are grateful they will continue to serve on our board.

As we enter 2025, we are excited to work alongside this dedicated group of leaders who bring such depth of experience and commitment to Los Angeles.