Jennifer Ho
Jennifer Ho is a Deputy Director at the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. In her first four months at USICH, she shepherded the development of the Opening Doors, the nation’s first‐ever comprehensive federal plan to prevent and end homelessness.
Jennifer has 10 years of experience in both non-profit and for-profit managed care. While managing state and federal government programs at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, she explored the relationship between homelessness and health care, leading to the formation of a new non-profit called Hearth Connection, which she directed from 1999 through January 2010. During her tenure, she led advocacy efforts that resulted in $45 million in legislative appropriations to the Minnesota Department of Human Services for supportive housing services and developed a project on long-term homelessness for single adults and families with children which was replicated in 32 counties in Minnesota and supportively housed over 2,200 people.
Jennifer is the USICH liaison to the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, and Agriculture, and the Social Security Administration, and she is the point person on issues related to family homelessness. Her background in health care and successful track record in using mainstream benefits to complement supportive housing will help translate the enormous impact of health reform to the task of ending homelessness.
