Staff & Project Areas

Founder & Executive Director - Maria Foscarinis

Program Staff

Policy Director - Laurel Weir

Legal Director - Catherine Bendor

Civil Rights Program Director - Tulin Ozdeger

Human Rights Program Director/Children & Youth Attorney - Eric Tars

Domestic Violence Attorney - Cecelia Friedman Levin

Director of Pro Bono Services - Vacant

Program Assistant/Executive Assistant - Vacant

Administration

Director of Operations - Vibha Bhatia

Volunteer - Marion Manheimer

Development & Communications

Development/Communications Manager - Jordan Lamb Railsback

Grant Writer/Communications Assistant - Katherine Bittner

Development Assistant - Jessica Libbey

Maria Foscarinis

Executive Director

Maria Foscarinis is founder and executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, a not-for-profit organization established in 1989 as the legal arm of the nationwide effort to end homelessness. Maria has advocated for solutions to homelessness at the national level since 1985. She is a primary architect of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, the first major federal legislation addressing homelessness, and she has litigated to secure the legal rights of homeless persons. Maria writes and speaks widely on legal and policy issues affecting homeless persons and is frequently quoted in the media.

Maria is a 1977 graduate of Barnard College and a 1981 graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was an editor of the Law Review.  She also holds a Masters of Arts degree in Philosophy. After clerking for the Honorable Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, she was a litigation associate at Sullivan & Cromwell where she volunteered to take a pro bono case representing homeless families. In 1985, she left the firm to establish and direct a Washington office for the National Coalition for the Homeless before she founded NLCHP in 1989.

PROGRAM STAFF

Laurel Weir

Policy Director

Laurel Weir is the Policy Director for NLCHP where she has worked since 1989. At NLCHP, Laurel is responsible for overseeing the organization's legislative advocacy. Prior to becoming Policy Director, she coordinated NLCHP's advocacy, administrative, and financial functions for five years.

Laurel received her BA from Scripps College in 1988 and a Master's Degree in Public Policy from the School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland in 2002.

Catherine Bendor

Legal Director

Tulin Ozdeger

Civil Rights Program Director

Tulin Ozdeger coordinates the Civil Rights Project at the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP). Tulin works with advocates to challenge city practices that criminalize homelessness. She serves as co-counsel in litigation, files amicus briefs, and serves as a resource for attorneys pursuing litigation. Tulin also writes reports, articles, and other publications to provide legal guidance and information about the civil rights issues of homeless people.

In addition, she monitors civil rights issues throughout the country and provides technical assistance to advocates who are combating criminalization measures or working on voting issues. As part of the Civil Rights Program's public education initiative, Tulin provides trainings related to strategies for challenging the criminalization of homelessness and promoting the voting rights of homeless persons.

Tulin received her B.S. from Northwestern University and her J.D. from George Washington University Law School. Before joining NLCHP, Tulin worked as a staff attorney on complex litigation matters at Arnold & Porter. Her work at Arnold & Porter also included a substantial pro bono practice.

Eric Tars

Human Rights Program Director/Children & Youth Attorney 

Eric Tars currently serves as the Human Rights Program Director and Children & Youth Staff Attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.  In his human rights capacity, he works with homeless and housing advocacy organizations to train and strategically utilize human rights as a component of their work.  In his youth rights capacity, he works to protect homeless students' rights to education and advocates for homeless youth and families through trainings, litigation, and policy advocacy at the national and local levels.

Before coming to the Law Center, Eric was a Fellow with Global Rights' US Racial Discrimination Program, and consulted with Columbia University Law School's Human Rights Institute and the US Human Rights Network. Eric's work has spanned the country and the globe.  He coordinated the involvement of hundreds of organizations in the hearings of the US before the UN Committee Against Torture and Human Rights Committee in 2006.  Eric has conducted numerous trainings on integrating human rights strategies into domestic advocacy, and he currently serves as the Chair of the Training Committee of the US Human Rights Network and on the CERD Advisory Task Force of the Network.

Eric received his JD as a Global Law Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, and during that time served as a Research Assistant to Prof. Mari Matsuda, as a Legal Assistant at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and as Law Clerk at Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, a law firm specializing in non-profit law.  He received his BA in Political Science from Haverford College and studied international human rights in Vienna, Austria at the Institute for European Studies and at the University of Vienna.

Cecelia Friedman Levin

Domestic Violence Attorney

Vacant

Program Assistant/Executive Assistant

Volunteer

DEVELOPMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

Jordan Lamb Railsback

Development & Communications Manager

Jordan Lamb Railsback is the Development and Communications Manager with NLCHP.  She manages fundraising activities, public communications, and events, including the annual McKinney-Vento Awards Dinner.

Prior to joining NLCHP, Jordan served as the Assistant Director of Policy Analysis and Communications for the Accreditation Office at the American Psychological Association.  She has also worked as a Residential Counselor for Threshold Services, Inc. in Rockville, Maryland, which provides residential and rehabilitative services to adults with mental illness.  Jordan became interested in issues surrounding homelessness and poverty while working with men and women who had been homeless prior to receiving such residential services. 

Jordan received her BA in Psychology from Wake Forest University and her MPA from American University's School of Public Affairs, where she focused her graduate coursework on nonprofit management.

Katherine Bittner

Grant Writer/Communications Assistant

Katherine Bittner began with NLCHP in July 2007 as the Development Assistant, assisting in carrying out key donor relations and research functions, managing the organization's growing donor database, aiding in the production of grant proposals and reports, and supporting the organization's growing membership and outreach efforts.  Katherine now prepares grant applications, researches prospective foundation funders, and assists with key communication efforts. 

Prior to joining NLCHP, Katherine volunteered in Honduras and Nicaragua with an NGO focused on sustainable development and women's empowerment, where she worked in development, operations and administrative capacities. She graduated from the University of Richmond with a Bachelor's degree in International Studies and spent a semester in Panama studying sustainable development.

Jessica Libbey

Development Assistant