Maria Foscarinis  
Founder & Executive Director, National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty

Maria Foscarinis is Founder and Executive Director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, a not-for-profit organization established in 1989 as the legal arm of the nationwide effort to end homelessness. Ms. Foscarinis has advocated for solutions to homelessness and poverty at the national level since 1985. She is a primary architect of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, the first major federal legislation addressing homelessness, and she has litigated to secure the legal rights of homeless and poor persons. Ms. Foscarinis writes regularly about legal and policy issues affecting homeless and poor persons, and her work has appeared in legal journals, general audience publications, and books. She is a frequent speaker at conferences and other events, and is frequently quoted in the media.

Ms. Foscarinis is a 1977 graduate of Barnard College and 1981 graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was an editor of the Law Review; she also holds a Masters of Arts degree in Philosophy. After clerking for the Honorable Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, she was a litigation associate at Sullivan & Cromwell; while there, she volunteered to take a pro bono case representing homeless families. In 1985, she led the establishment of the Washington office of the National Coalition for the Homeless until she founded the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

Articles by Maria Foscarinis: (2)