United Way Homelessness Symposium Featuring ‘Evicted’ Author

United Way of Ventura County is excited to announce its United to End Homelessness Virtual Symposium on Friday, April 9, at 9 a.m. PST. The symposium will feature Matthew Desmond, author of Pulitzer Prize winning bestseller “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City,” as its keynote speaker. Following Desmond’s address, there will be an opportunity for a Q&A session with the author, which will then lead into a panel discussion with local experts — moderated by Henry Dubroff, editor of the Pacific Coast Business Times — on addressing homelessness.

The two-hour, virtual, one-time live event is one of many efforts United Way of Ventura County will be launching to continue bringing awareness to its United to End Homelessness initiative, honor its mission “to mobilize and inspire the caring power and resources of our community,” and address the shelter crisis in Ventura County.

While many virtual events have the ability to be recorded for future viewing, United Way of Ventura County stresses that this is a one-time live event in which Desmond’s portion will not be recorded. General admission event tickets are $25, and a limited number of premium tickets, which include an autographed copy of “Evicted,” are available for $100. These can be purchased at https://www.tickettailor.com/events/unitedway/504790#.

Panelists include: Julia Brownley, U.S. representative (CA-26); Mike Powers, CEO, County of Ventura;
Henry Stern, California state senator (SD-27); Nancy Grygiel, senior vice president and chief compliance officer, Amgen; Emilio Ramirez, housing director, City of Oxnard; and Amy Duganne, director, homelessness initiatives, United Way of Ventura County.

“Everyone needs and deserves a safe place to call home, yet this critical need has become increasingly out of reach for so many who call Ventura County home,” said Eric Harrison, the nonprofit’s president and CEO. “United Way is beyond grateful to have Matthew Desmond, whose research and work in this area is invaluable, to help us bring awareness to our United to End Homelessness initiative. It truly is a must-watch event because there won’t be a recording available, so we hope to have our community come together on the morning of April 9 to be inspired and to learn.”

Desmond is the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and, in addition to “Evicted” — which also won the National Book Critics Circle Award, Carnegie Medal and PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction — has authored three more books. As the principal investigator of The Eviction Lab, Desmond’s research focuses on poverty in America, city life, housing insecurity, public policy, racial inequality and ethnography. Desmond is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award and the William Julius Wilson Early Career Award, and was listed in 2016 among the Politico 50, as one of “50 people across the country who are most influencing the national political debate.”

For symposium sponsorship opportunities, please contact Mitchel Sloan, vice president of resource development and marketing, at 805-485-6288, ext. 229 or mitchel.sloan@vcunitedwy.org. To learn more about the event and United Way of Ventura County, please visit www.vcunitedway.org/homelessness-symposium-2021.