Tonja Harris

I've been working in the nonprofit sector for over 15 years, and I'm currently the Director of Housing for an organization called New Moms in Chicago. In my role, I oversee two programs: a four-unit transitional housing program where moms typically stay for up to 2 years, and an 18-unit permanent supportive housing program. My work involves a lot of compliance reporting, performance management, and aligning with city, state, and national policies. It's a lot of data management and compliance work. Before this, I spent 5 years at Ascension Health Housing Alliance as an outreach and development manager, working to connect folks in the housing space to community. That was one of the more fun jobs I had because I was all over the city - north side, south side, and Waukegan - connecting people in transitional living spaces to community resources for work and other needs so that once they exited to independence, they had places to go. I also taught for 7 years at Fraser Preparatory Academy before the school unfortunately closed. I'm a native of the west side of Chicago, and I have a heart for all things west side. It warms my heart to see young people get into these programs, exit to independence, move to their permanent housing spaces, and then get reports back that they're doing really well, thriving, getting jobs, and their kids are doing well in school. My lens right now is social justice, and I'm currently a PhD student in the Applied Social Justice Program at Dominican University, where I'm part of the inaugural cohort. I'm writing my dissertation around Black women in leadership and what we face in nonprofit spaces, exploring this notion around the concrete ceiling and how we break it and still find joy. I'm a first-generation college graduate and was raised by a teen mom, so it's been a beautiful struggle.