Social Impact Awards 2025

This year's Keynote speaker is Leah Rothstein. Her expertise in the full range of housing policy stems from more than two decades as a community and union organizer and consultant to housing developers, cities and counties, redevelopment agencies, and private firms. She specializes in community development, affordable housing policy, practice, and finance.

Since Just Action's release, Leah has traveled the country, speaking to community groups, real estate associations, congregations, civil rights organizations, universities, housing professionals, bankers, and many others about how we can all take just actions to redress segregation. She has delivered the keynote address at numerous national and regional housing, human rights, economic development, and real estate conferences. She continues to advise local governments and community organizations on strategies to promote fair housing and challenge segregation.

Leah has worked on public policy and community change from the grassroots to the halls of government. She led research on reforming community corrections policy and practice to focus on rehabilitation, not punishment. She has also been a consultant on community development and affordable housing policy, practice, and finance. Her policy work is informed by her years as a community and labor organizer.

Leah received a Bachelor's Degree, with honors, in American Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Master's of Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

She lives in Oakland, California, with her partner, Skye. They have created a co-housing compound with friends to resist the isolation of single-family housing.

Host or Publisher Rev. Donald L. Perryman, PhD