Advocacy in Action: Understanding the influence of advocacy organizations on local affordable housing policy in the U.S.
By Anaid Yerena
Monday February 23, 2015 at 2:30pm
808 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 109
Anaid is an architect, planner, and researcher who investigates public participation processes and activities related to housing and community development. Her research has a strong community-based component that provides knowledge to advocate for and empower disenfranchised groups. As an undergraduate at the Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM), Mexico, she coordinated the development of the first Master Plan for the City of Montemorelos. She worked on the technical aspects of the Plan and set up a forum and interviews with local residents, these activities were crucial to building support for the Plan’s approval and implementation (received UDEM’s Excellence Award). While completing her Masters in Urban and Regional Planning at UC Irvine, she completed research for the Los Angeles Legal Aid Foundation assessing potential housing sites for extremely low-income households in Long Beach, California. The report resulting from this research was named Planning, Policy, and Design’s Best Professional Report in 2009. As a Ph.D. student she has received numerous accolades for her research (Haynes Dissertation Award; Dean’s Community Engagement Award), teaching (UC Irvine Pedagogical Fellow), mentoring (Planning, Policy, and Design Mentor Award, 2011 and 2012), and service (Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Student Representative 2012-14). These honors are a testament to the impact and quality of her work.