Lawanda Williams is the Director of Housing Services at Health Care for the Homeless (HCH). At the downtown Baltimore site, she leads a team of 30, consisting of five distinct housing programs. Combined, these programs currently provide housing supports to over 400 of our most vulnerable neighbors. These programs provide a range of clinical services designed to help people obtain and retain housing placements by addressing the needs of people living with HIV and other medical disabilities, as well as those managing persistent and severe mental illness. During her eight-year tenure at HCH, she has served in a number of roles with increasing levels of responsibility and program oversight, including clinical case manager, lead case manager, program coordinator and director. Lawanda has delivered workshops at the American Public Health Association and National Health Care for the Homeless Council’s (NHCHC) annual conference, focusing on the topics of housing as a structural intervention to reduce HIV viral load and Trauma Informed Care. She currently serves as a member of the NHCHC’s Clinician’s Network Steering Committee. As a Steering Committee member, Lawanda works on initiatives that help assess the needs of the Council’s member agencies, establish annual priorities, provide technical assistance and produce responsive deliverables.

As a native of Baltimore, Lawanda has an enduring love for this city. She has strong ties to the community and deep commitment to seeing all of its citizens included. Towards this end, Lawanda intentionally pursued academic experiences that would enrich her understanding of the urban environment and the challenges and strengths that accompany these landscapes. She obtained her Associate Degree in Human Services in 2007, with a concentration in substance abuse counseling. She was later afforded an opportunity to pursue an urban-focused education at Morgan State University (MSU), where she obtained a BSW in 2009 and MSW in 2010, with a concentration in public health.

Lawanda is a strong advocate for client inclusion and practices that center around client choice. Her strengths-based and harm reduction approaches exemplify her core belief that everyone has inherent assets that can be leveraged towards self-defined recovery. Hope is a principle that undergirds her work, that the mere demonstration of the belief that someone can get better is an important predictor of success.