Deborah Thrope is the Deputy Director of the National Housing Law Project (NHLP). Deborah’s work focuses on federal, state, and local policy advocacy to preserve affordable housing and tenants’ rights. She provides training and technical assistance to advocates working with low-income tenants and serves as an advisor and editor of NHLP’s seminal publication, HUD Housing Programs: Tenants Rights. Deborah has testified before Congress about increasing economic mobility in the Housing Choice Voucher program and improving living conditions for public housing residents. Before she joined NHLP, Deborah was a Senior Attorney at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley and represented clients with disabilities facing eviction and civil commitment.

Eric Dunn is a national expert on tenants’ rights and consumer law issues, known for high-impact advocacy on matters affecting subsidized housing tenants and families struggling to access housing because of criminal and eviction records. Prior to NHLP, Eric was an attorney with the Virginia Poverty Law Center, the Northwest Justice Project in Seattle, and the Legal Aid & Defender Association of Detroit.

Some of Eric’s most significant subsidized housing cases include Hendrix v. Seattle Housing Authority and Shepherd v. Weldon Mediation Services, Inc., which both lead to significant improvements in the administrative hearing protections for families facing termination from federally subsidized housing. Another case, Resident Action Council v. Seattle Housing Authority, vindicated the free speech rights of public housing tenants, protecting their right to post signs on their doors and windows. Downtowner Tenants Association v. Seelig stopped the owner of a HUD-subsidized building from raising rents or displacing tenants after the Rent Supplement contract expired, forcing a sale to a new owner who maintained the building as affordable housing.

On rental housing access, Eric’s most important victories include Simmons v. T.M. Associates Management, Inc., which found that a landlord may have a duty to overlook a rental applicant’s disability-related criminal conviction as a reasonable accommodation under the Fair Housing Act, and Arroyo v. Corelogic Rental Property Solutions, LLC, which established that consumer reporting agencies are subject to the Fair Housing Act when they engage in tenant-screening activities. In Handlin v. On-Site Manager, Inc., the court upheld a rental applicant’s right to obtain a full and complete disclosure of a tenant-screening report that a landlord obtained about the applicant. Indigo Real Estate Services v. Rousey established a right for a domestic violence survivor to have an eviction case record sealed to protect her future housing opportunities. Eric also was a lead counsel in Smith v. Wasatch Property Management, Inc., which challenged a landlord’s policy of categorically denying admission to applicants with eviction records, by alleging an unlawful discriminatory effect on African-American women. Smith, which settled in 2017, is believed to be the first fair housing case ever filed based on the discriminatory impact of eviction records.

James’ work at NHLP focuses on the preservation of privately-owned federally subsidized housing developments and he is considered one of the nation’s foremost experts on the subject. He has participated in many significant cases that have established or further defined preservation laws and rights of tenants in threatened properties and regularly provides assistance to legislators, housing attorneys, advocates and organizations. He is also an expert on low income housing tax credits and utility and energy issues.

James has co-authored the following publications on tenants’ rights in affordable housing: NHLP’s HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights, Public Housing in Peril, FmHA Housing Programs: Tenants’ and Purchasers’ Rights, the Subsidized Housing Handbook: How to Provide, Preserve and Manage Housing for Lower-Income People, and for the ACLU Handbook series, The Rights of Tenants.

Outside of his experience with NHLP, James was a lecturer at Boalt Hall School of Law at University of California in Berkeley and has served as Assistant Attorney for the City of Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization Board.

Natalie N. Maxwell is the Managing Attorney at the National Housing Law Project. Natalie’s work at NHLP focuses on preserving rural housing (with a focus on USDA’s housing programs), preserving housing for low-income tenants impacted by disasters, and protecting and expanding the fair housing rights of low-income tenants and communities. 

Prior to joining NHLP, Natalie worked in the Florida legal aid delivery system, where she engaged in community lawyering to support community-based groups working for social, economic, and racial justice; engaged in state and local policy advocacy; and conducted litigation on behalf of low-income individuals and communities involving housing preservation, housing discrimination, disability rights, and public benefits. She also worked as an assistant public defender in Florida’s Fifth Judicial Circuit representing indigent clients in felony and misdemeanor trials.  

Natalie began her legal career as a 2005 Equal Justice Works Fellow, developing and engaging in legal strategies to increase access to accessible and affordable housing for low-income Floridians with disabilities. She is a graduate of the University of Florida and earned her law degree from the American University, Washington College of Law.

Noëlle Porter is responsible for managing relationships with Congress and the Administration, organizational policy priority development, and strategic advocacy planning and execution. She works closely with all of NHLP’s attorneys to monitor and influence federal legislation and regulations.

Prior to joining NHLP, Noëlle managed congressional relations for the National Alliance to End Homelessness after beginning her career in health policy. While earning her Master of Public Health from the University of South Florida, Noëlle worked as a case manager for a homeless services provider in Tampa.

Marcos Segura focuses on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, USDA’s Rural Development program, and NHLP’s California policy work. Before joining NHLP, Marcos was a staff attorney with Central California Legal Services where he represented individuals facing eviction and represented others in both state and federal court on real estate fraud, predatory debt collection, and habitability issues. Before joining CCLS, Marcos served as a UCLA Community Economic Development Fellow at the Public Counsel Law Center where he advised nonprofit organizations and small business owners on tax and corporate governance issues.

Bridgett A. Simmons’s work focuses on the preservation of HUD-subsidized multifamily housing, healthy housing, and voucher use. Bridgett joined NHLP in September 2017 as the second David B. Bryson Fellow. As the Bryson Fellow, Bridgett managed the editing process for the 5th edition of HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights, also known as the “Green Book.”

Bridgett is a 2017 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center (GULC) and a 2011 graduate of Florida A&M University (FAMU). While at GULC, Bridgett participated in the Harrison Institute’s Affordable Housing Transactions clinic, assisting District residents in operating a multi-family housing property purchased via the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. Bridgett also served as a student teacher in the Street Law: High School clinic and as a Law Clerk for Community Law Center (CLC) in Baltimore, Maryland. As a student at FAMU, Bridgett actively participated in campaigns aimed at increasing student political participation.

Lauren D. Song is a Senior Staff Attorney working on affordable housing preservation. She joined NHLP in 2022 and helps to build campaigns to support legal and organizing partners and tenants to preserve their federally assisted housing, advance racial equity through tenant-centered advocacy, and improve housing conditions and tenant rights. Prior to NHLP, Lauren worked for over 15 years at Greater Boston Legal Services where she partnered with many grassroots community-based organizations, low-income tenant organizations, and public agencies to ensure the one-for-one redevelopment of thousands of severely distressed federal and state public housing units into inclusive mixed-finance, mixed-income communities through participatory development processes; to collaborate on anti-displacement legislative campaigns and neighborhood-specific litigation to defend BIPOC communities targeted by corporate speculators; and to leverage building-wide direct representation of post-foreclosure homeowners and tenants to stabilize and protect vulnerable communities during the foreclosure crisis.

A first-generation immigrant from Korea who is proud to be the first in her family to attend college (Yale), Lauren began her legal career after Harvard Law School as a Soros Justice Fellow, committed to empowering immigrant victims of domestic violence to enforce their rights under the Violence Against Women Act. Lauren was also a PhD candidate in Human Development at the University of Chicago where she spent 10 years marveling on the diverse resiliency of high-risk, low-income teens of color.

Deidre Swesnik is responsible for managing communications efforts for NHLP. Deidre joined NHLP in 2019. Before joining, she worked for 20 years in the areas of housing and community development. She was a program officer at the Open Society Foundations where she managed the housing and community equity portfolios for the United States. Prior to that, she was the director of public policy and communications for the National Fair Housing Alliance and a policy associate at Rapoza Associates, where she managed the National Rural Housing Coalition and other coalitions and clients.

Stacey Tutt is the Homeowner Assistance Fund Coordinator and a Senior Staff Attorney at NHLP. Her work focuses on the national implementation of the Homeowner’s Assistance Fund. She works with legal aid attorneys and housing counselors around the country and with groups representing state-level HAF administrators and mortgage servicers to develop and disseminate best practices; provide technical assistance to legal aid attorneys and housing counselors working directly with homeowners; and advocate with the Treasury Department and select HAF program administrators based on lessons learned on the ground.

Prior to joining NHLP, Stacey designed and directed the Consumer Law Clinic at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. The Consumer Law Clinic focused on keeping low-income consumers in their homes after experiencing home improvement fraud and advocating on behalf of vulnerable populations with government-imposed debt. She also developed and directed the Community Preservation Clinic at the University of Illinois College of Law which provided foreclosure defense to vulnerable homeowners, developed foreclosure mediation programs throughout the state, and designed neighborhood revitalization efforts following the foreclosure crisis.