Our Team


Office and Administration

Latanya “Toni” Burton-Mickey

she/her

Toni serves as NEOCH’s Office Manager and provides support for NEOCH’s advocacy and organizing work, specifically with the Homeless Congress and the Cleveland Street Chronicle. She is also responsible for incoming and outgoing donations. Toni began working at NEOCH in February 2018. She received an Associate of Arts and Associated Sciences degree from Cuyahoga Community College in 2006 and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration and an MBA in Healthcare Management from Ursuline College in 2012 and 2016, respectively.

 In her free time, she does ministry work with Five Ladies Delivering Hands. Through this effort, she feeds those experiencing homelessness, as well as procuring and distributing items in her neighborhood Newburgh Heights and other neighborhoods throughout the city of Cleveland.


Organizing and Advocacy

Josiah Quarles

he/him

Josiah Quarles is NEOCH’S Director of Organizing and Advocacy. A long-time soccer coach, he views the sport as an apex of cooperation, communication, skill building, and endurance. Nurturing these attributes while appreciating the dignity and creative sovereignty of the individual permeates the way he thinks about organizing. The interplay of freedom and structure, space and connectivity, urgency and patience animate the points of tension that create moments of brilliance in what they call the “beautiful game”, and in movement work. 

Josiah has a background in grassroots organizing, public speaking, education, sport-based youth development, and multimedia arts. Social Justice and the liberation struggle have been at the heart of many of his professional and artistic endeavors. He views two-way education, community-based solutions, and decentralized power building as fundamentally essential to challenging the politics and policies that have codified the oppression and disenfranchisement of so many. Housing is foundational to creating community stability, safety and success, and he is happy to help lay that foundation.


Renee Williams

she/her

Renee Williams serves as a Housing Justice Community Organizer at NEOCH, facilitating the formation of tenant associations to address landlord harassment and achieve safe and stable housing conditions. She also acts as an advocate for tenants and provides referrals to vital housing services. Renee is passionate about dismantling harmful societal structures that seek to oppress marginalized and underprivileged communities. Before her employment at NEOCH, Renee was a social worker for many years, advocating for housing, medical, employment, and income rights for victims of discrimination. 

Renee currently holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in social work from the University of Toledo, and a master's in social work (MSSA) from the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. 

In her free time, Renee is an active member of her church, participating in media ministry and street outreach. She also loves photography, traveling, and spending time with her family and friends. 

Learn more about the work our Organizing and Advocacy team does in Cleveland



Kathryn Boor

she/her they/them

Kathryn joined the NEOCH team in August 2023 as a Communications Coordinator and manages NEOCH’s social media platforms, e-newsletters, and print media to increase public awareness of NEOCH’s mission, advocacy work, and resources available in Northeast Ohio. 

Kathryn graduated from The Modern College of Design in Dayton Ohio in 2022 with a Bachelor’s in Design Thinking and Graphic Design. They are passionate about linking their community with social movements through social media and the design thinking process. They were active in helping Love on a Mission in Mansfield, Ohio and helped found a GSA in college. Now Kathryn is focusing on applying their design work to helping create a better future one project at a time. 


Street Outreach

Ange Mastandrea

they/them

Ange is the Street Outreach Coordinator at NEOCH, where they have the pleasure of supporting the street outreach team and the wider Cleveland Outreach Collaborative.  They received their B.A. in sociology and gender studies from Cleveland State University in 2020 and are currently attending graduate and law school at CSU in pursuit of a joint J.D./M.P.A. Prior to joining as a NEOCH staff member, Ange worked primarily in the Cleveland nonprofit sector and focused on a variety of areas including leadership development, ageism, and intergenerational connection, disability advocacy, and other issues of inequity.

They hope to combine their education, professional experience, and passion for social justice to affect positive policy change in Cleveland for ALL current and future residents of the city. They are guided by their sociological imagination and a strong determination to confront and eliminate the oppressive constructs that are continually perpetuated in all facets of life and society.  At home, you can find Ange cuddling with their cats, crafting, and daydreaming about a world in which everyone has lost their capitalistic chains.


2BRAIDS.PNG

Jonathan “2 braids” Harris

he/him

Jonathan Harris, who commonly goes by “2 Braids” to those who know him, has deep roots in his hometown of Cleveland. Jonathan began his work to end homelessness by experiencing homelessness himself. After staying at 2100 and working with street outreach workers in our community, he got into a place of his own and became an Outreach Trainee with NEOCH in 2018. He is now a full-time Outreach Worker ending homelessness for veterans in our community.

2 Braids has a passion for service, helping others, and building trusting relationships with people on and off the streets. In his free time, he is an active member of his church community and he loves to go on long drives (sometimes you’ll even find a client with him who has become a friend).


Dennis Ashton

he/him

Dennis grew up in Washington D.C. and has lived in Cleveland for the last 40 years. Over the years, he has worked in a variety of trades, including pipefitting, construction, and manufacturing. Dennis started working with the unhoused at the Bishop Cosgrove Center and as a staff member at The Metanoia Project, providing overnight hospitality to those who are unsheltered during the winter months. Dennis started as an Outreach Worker at the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) in November of 2019.

He enjoys the work he does because he loves helping people and giving back to his community. At NEOCH, Dennis spends his time out in the community, meeting people experiencing homelessness where they are and matching them with the resources they need to get into housing. Dennis lives in Shaker Heights and is the proud father of a son, Puff, who lives in Washington D.C., and a daughter, Taylor, who lives in Cleveland. 


Khorianna “Yanni” Randall

she/her

Khorianna, also known as Yanni, is the Outreach Specialist for the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program at NEOCH. She works closely with individuals with HIV/AIDS, experiencing homelessness and collaborates with the Nueva Luz Urban Resource Center and the Aids Taskforce of Greater Cleveland. Yanni ensures clients’ housing needs are always met and as an openly Black Trans woman with lived experience in homelessness, she brings an insightful perspective and knowledge to her clients and the systems she works in.

Khorianna is also a Public Opinion Leader (POL) for the LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland and an advocate for the Transgender community. With her extensive knowledge of HIV/AIDS, Monkeypox, and prevention, she goes out into the community to spread awareness, educate, and provide safe sex materials and community resources.

Yanni was able to take in two young individuals from the LGBTQIA + community who needed support and motherly love, becoming a “trans Parent” in her own right. At home, she enjoys spending time with her guinea pig, “Luna”, as well as making art, playing video games, and watching anime with her family.

Yanni hopes to shed light and bring change to the treatment of the Trans community, ensuring that trans individuals receive proper health care, equal opportunities, and compassion.


Screen Shot 2020-05-19 at 4.04.04 PM.png

CAREY GIBBONS

she/her they/them

Carey’s career started as an AmeriCorps volunteer with the American Red Cross working as a case manager with displaced victims 23 days after 9/11 occurred. She spent most of her twenties boomeranging around the states. She lived in the woods of North Carolina, where she taught at-risk youth how to live their best lives. She was also a barista for both Starbucks and Caribou Coffee and found that working in the service industry gives you a better understanding of how to show up for folks.

In her 30s she was able to work for the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, where she was a Youth Program Coordinator and Community Engagement Coordinator. After her time at the LGBT Center, she took a position at May Dugan Center as a Crisis Coordinator. They saw firsthand the many disparities LGBTQ folks experience accessing services and resources. At NEOCH, Carey is our Queer Youth Outreach and Engagement Manager, working with LGBTQ folks who are homeless or at-risk. In her free time, Carey enjoys doing Stonewall Sports, specifically kickball, dodgeball, bocce, and volleyball.


Jean Kosmac

she/her

Raised on Cleveland’s east side, Jean worked 24 years at Orange Blossom Press, a collective dedicated to printing for the progressive movement. As a member of the Community of St. Malachi for many years, she volunteered at the Back Door Ministry and was a cook for the Monday Night Meal. More recently, (the past 10-15 years), she has been involved at the Catholic Worker Storefront. Jean's path has led her to work at EDEN, the Metanoia Project, and recently NEOCH as a Street Outreach Worker. She still spends her weekends hanging out at the Storefront, and can be found there on Sunday afternoons assisting clients with housing.

IMG_3989.jpg

Jim Schlecht

he/him

Jim joined NEOCH as a Street Outreach Worker in 2020. He has been involved in working and volunteering with a number of agencies and organizations serving those suffering from poverty and homelessness in Cleveland. During his long career of service to the community, Jim has worked at the Rose Mary Center, the West Side Community House, the West Side Catholic Center, and Care Alliance. A resident of the near West Side for the last 48 years, Jim has spent much of that time serving the community he calls home.

IMG_5468.JPG

Learn more about the work our Street Outreach team does in Cleveland


Chris Knestrick

he/him

Chris Knestrick is the Executive Director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless.  He has over 10 years of experience working in homelessness in Cleveland and he has also directed advocacy efforts in the international and local community. Chris is committed to community organizing, undoing oppression, and promoting nonviolence that centers the voices of those most impacted by public policy.

His work has taken him from the streets of Cleveland to the mountains of Colombia. He is a graduate of the McCormick Theological Seminary. He likes to spend his days boating, fishing, and thinking about how to get the community to love so fiercely that homelessness is unimaginable.