Interview: Jeff Olivet

Jeff Olivet is Senior Advisor to the Initiative on Health and Homelessness and former Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. A longtime advocate, writer, and strategist, Jeff brings over 20 years of experience advancing equity and driving systemic change to end homelessness. Read his full bio.

Q: Can you share a bit about your personal and professional journey—what brought you into the work of ending homelessness, and what keeps you grounded in it today?

Jeff Olivet:

It’s been a long and winding journey in homelessness work. In the early ’90s, I was working with displaced people in East Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya—people fleeing violence and genocide in seeking asylum and safety in other neighboring countries. That was one of the first times I really saw the impact of homelessness and displacement up close.

When I moved back to the U.S. in 1993, I started volunteering at St. Francis House in Boston, which was really formative for me. A few years later, I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and worked in direct service in one way or another for about a decade before moving into more research, training, policy, and advocacy work and have been involved in national, and some international, work ever since. 

Over the past 30 years, I’ve worked on nearly every level—nonprofit organizations, universities, public health departments, and most recently in the federal government. I’ve learned so much along the way from so many people—especially people with lived experience of homelessness.

What keeps me grounded is walking beside people during some of the hardest days of their lives and also watching them exit homelessness, recover, and thrive. I have an amazing group of friends and family who help keep me grounded, and I have a daily meditation practice that reminds me to stay in the present and stay connected to the work. Even when things feel dark or discouraging, I try to look for the bright spots—there’s always incredible work going on in communities across the country. Holding on to those stories of hope is essential.

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Q: You’ve worn many hats in this field—as a practitioner, researcher, advocate, and leader. What experiences have most shaped your perspective on how we approach homelessness as a society?

Jeff Olivet:

What has shaped me the most is learning from people who have experienced homelessness themselves. Bryan Stevenson talks about getting “proximate to the problems” that we’re working with and as a person who has never experienced homelessness myself, I constantly learn from people who have survived and thrived and are now lifting their voices to shape programs, systems, and policy.

I’ve seen that play out in all kinds of ways. I saw it playing out when I was doing direct service work, working side by side with peers who had come out of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction, and were in recovery and now helping others. At the national level, I’ve seen real movement toward including people with lived experience in meaningful ways. A great example is youth action boards—young people who are designing programs, helping administer budgets, and really shaping policy.

We’re never going to get the policy solutions or the programmatic design right if we don’t center the voices of people who have lived through this. It’s got to be done in solidarity with people who have been there.

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Q: In your role as USICH director in the Biden Administration, what’s something you’re especially proud of, or something that gives you hope amidst today’s challenges?

Jeff Olivet:

What gives me the most pride is the work of the federal career public servants. These are people who keep the work going regardless of who is in the White House or what political winds are blowing. They’re deeply committed, smart, and passionate—and they don’t get nearly enough credit.

At USICH, we coordinate 19 federal agencies to set a strategic direction around homelessness. That’s a very difficult job to wrangle a lot of different priorities and different points of view into a strategic direction and my team was extraordinary at that. I’m proud of the work that our team did on messaging what’s important, especially around racial equity, prevention, and approaching homelessness with a real eye toward stopping it before it happens. We brought a public health mindset to the work of ending homelessness and a real honesty of the racial inequities we see playing out.

So, I’m proud of all of that work, but mostly proud of the work that the team was doing before I got there and continued to do during my tenure.

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Q: We often talk about systems change in this work. What does meaningful systems change look like to you, and where do you see opportunities right now?

Jeff Olivet:

I layer systems change onto other types of change. At the foundation is the individual-level work—helping people access housing, health care, mental health supports, jobs, school, and family. Then there’s the program or agency level, where we hope organizations like health systems, nonprofits, and faith-based providers are effective and use the best evidence to guide their services.

But if all of that happens without a strong, cohesive system centered around people rather than bureaucracy, then both individuals and providers end up hitting barriers. A well-run system should respond to individual needs without forcing people to jump through hoops. It should be well-coordinated so that people don’t fall through the cracks.

When someone comes out of incarceration and has no housing, no job, and no support, and ends up homeless—that’s not an individual failure, that’s a system failure. The same goes for a young person aging out of foster care without a strong support system. High rates of homelessness in these groups point to breakdowns in coordination.

A better system ensures that housing providers, schools, employers, and community networks work together to support people through these transitions—so that no one has to experience homelessness simply because the system failed them.

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Q: For students and early-career professionals interested in this field, what advice would you offer—or what do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?

Jeff Olivet:

That’s a really hard question, because I’ve had so many good mentors and received so much meaningful advice. But one thing that’s stayed with me is this: when we’re doing the work of healing—whether that’s at the individual, community, or societal level—we have to be in it for the long haul. These problems were deeply entrenched long before we arrived, and they will likely persist after we’re gone. So, the question becomes: how are you going to spend your time, your talents, your energy?

Each of us has a unique role to play in building a healthier and more compassionate world. That impact can look different for everyone, but what matters is finding where you plug in—and not being in too much of a rush. The ten years I spent in direct service were the most important classroom of my life. That experience grounded everything I’ve done since. So, see a need, get involved, and stick with it.

And throughout it all, keep yourself strong. Stay connected to the people and to the reasons you got into this work in the first place. That’s how we stay motivated, grounded, and committed for the long haul.