MICAH’s Speakers Bureau - We are your neighbors
Our speakers are organizing to use their power and their voices, preparing to share about their lived experiences of homelessness and housing instability. We have a broad diversity and representation in cultural sensitivity, human services, people with disabilities, access to transportation, and other intersections with housing like military needs and tenant protections.
We are accepting invitations from faith communities to bring panel discussions to your groups & community events in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
Contact Linda Soderstrom, Coordinator, at: llsod.lindalee@gmail.com
Amanda Leathers recently spoke on a domestic violence seminar in Bloomington, MN; has worked in forming, and the administration of, LEAN (Lived Experience Advocacy Network). LEAN has Amanda as their advocate/co-founder, based in North Minneapolis.
She represents MICAH/LEAN at the Homes for All Coalition policy committee.
In Duluth she co-presented for the MN Coalition for the Homeless annual fall conference on LEAN's methods and mission.
Bright and bubbly, Candy Bakion is a constant learner who believes life lessons come from natural experiences. A life-long Minneapolis and current Heritage Park Resident, Candy has many years of customer service experience at a variety of organizations including MICAH. When she is not rolling with her entourage of five children, and a Grandson, she enjoys connecting with people through chatting and sharing knowledge.
Ms. Jewelean Jackson is a long time Elder and Community Servant with the philosophical action of life-long learning, from the cradle to the grave. She is the Lifetime National Ms. Kwanzaa speaking to Kwanzaa as a way of life in her travels.
Ms. Jackson believes that Affordable and Quality housing is a human right; that every American citizen deserves this God given right and one of her goals for serving on MICAH'S Speakers Bureau is to work toward changing stereotypes of homelessness.
Linda Soderstrom was first displaced from deeply affordable Crossroads at Penn in Richfield; then Bloomington, and now St Charles in Southeast MN. Gentrification has kept her on the move.
Sue Watlov Phillips had been thinking of forming a Lived Experience Speakers Bureau for some time and Linda happened to be free to volunteer as coordinator.
We look forward to bringing positive solutions and our power in our own voices as a close working cohort in 2024.
Marlena Jasch is a Native American woman with lived experience in homelessness, a certified nursing assistant, and an advocate for battered women. She is passionate about quality care for the elderly and policy and procedure changes at all levels that promote equity and the change necessary to end homelessness. Consulting agencies include: Department of Administration, Department of Corrections, Department of Public Safety, and Department of Human Services.
Milton Manning is a United States veteran with the Navy. He is a member of the Trusted Messenger program with MICAH. His outreach work also includes One Family One Community & MAD DADS of Minneapolis. Milton is the former at-large president of CANDO, Central Area Neighborhood Development Organization.
Milton is from Chicago Illinois. He is a project manager, has worked on solar panel installation and design, logistics, heavy equipment operator backhoe one.
Natividad Seefeld has been a volunteer Board President of Park Plaza Cooperative since the day they started the journey of becoming a resident owned community (ROC) in 2010.
She served on a seat of the ROC, USA Board and helped to create the ROC Association. She is the Chair of the ROC Association Policy & Advocacy Committee and was the Vice President of All Parks Alliance for Change. She also serves on the MICAH Board. Growing up she and her family moved a lot, and even lived in a car for a short period of time. Mother of 3, grandmother of 4, and great grandmother of 4, Natividad believes that everyone should have a safe and affordable place to live.
Ray Widstrand is Program Coordinator for Relief Health Services, a provider of Housing Stabilization Services in Minnesota - working to find long-term housing for housing insecure people.
Ray suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2013 as the result of an assault while trying to help a young woman, he was awarded the St. Paul Police Chief Medal of Valor in 2016. Ray is also a member of the MN Brain Injury Alliance Speakers Bureau, raising awareness of TBIs and brain injuries across Minnesota.”