Interview with Mrs. Kennetha Patterson "The Homeless CEO"
Tell us a little about yourself and how you got involved in the housing justice movement.
I come from a family household of seven: husband, wife, children, and now grandboy. Even with a sixty-thousand-dollar household income, we were still living in poverty. We were displaced four different times, and each time it felt like the ground moved under our feet. I was not an advocate then. I was a mother trying to survive a system that was never designed for families like mine. After our last displacement, I created Vision Heirs Incorporated because I wanted to build the support I could not find. When I could not secure funding and had to dissolve it, I learned my first lesson about how competition and gatekeeping shape the nonprofit world.
When I became homeless myself, I saw how impossible it was to navigate the system alone. That is when advocacy found me. My first major collective win was securing one for one replacement units at the Park at Hillside, an expired LIHTC [Low-Income Housing Tax Credit] property. That fight showed me how predatory developers can be when LIHTC properties expire. That is a part of where “The Homeless CEO” identity was born, right in the middle of homelessness and system learning.
Today, I stand as one of this year’s Lorraine Brown Resident Leader Award recipients and a proud member of The Collective number four cohort with NLIHC. My journey is not theoretical. It is lived, tested, and carried forward with purpose.
What do you think about when you hear this issue’s title, “Collective Strength Through Adversity”?
I feel a sense of relief, because being heard is not something many of us started with. A lot of us began advocating for others long before we ever had advocates for ourselves. Collective strength means naming that truth out loud. It means recognizing that our survival stories are not individual accidents, but shared experiences shaped by policy and missing data. When we bring awareness, we make space for our voices to matter and for our communities to be seen.
How can being involved in your community play a role in collective liberation and healing?
Community involvement builds people power. It tells the next person that they are not just a resident but a stakeholder in their own neighborhood. Public education and training are essential, and peer to peer support is one of the strongest tools we have. Community members already hold key knowledge, and public education helps us glean from that wisdom. I always say we need to do things out of charity and not within charity. It is like the saying teach a person to fish and they will never go hungry again. We need to build leadership and a different kind of homeowner, and that is what is missing in the housing sector.
What are some lessons you learned while organizing and advocating in your community that you would like to share with other communities across the country?
As much as you may want to give up, think about the consequences of stepping away from the work. Everyone plays a role in the movement. As a heartbeat and blueprint pollinator, if I take a step back, so many things will unravel. With peers you are never alone. Reach out for help. Do not work in a silo. Be in community, do no harm, and be transparent so we can build our communities back, out of charity and not with solely perceived charity.
Do you have any words of advice for the readers who are organizing on the frontlines?
Always be aware of your surroundings. Make sure you are leading your organizing efforts and that no one takes them away from you. Keep your leadership tenant centered. HUD regulations are the bible, as stated by one of the OG's in our 2026 NLIHC pre-housing policy forum tenant sessions. We need to be educated on what our rights are and what the law says so we can build others up.
Are there any words you want to leave the readers with?
Even out of adversity you can be creative. My community executive leaders with unhoused lived expertise, and myself as a foundational member right alongside them, created the Nashville Voices of Resilience Homeless Choir to push back against bureaucracy and reclaim our power. Be you and decide what you want to bring into this world, because every one of us has a part to play to end homelessness.