Meet our Guest Speakers!
Juha Kahila, Head Of International Affairs, Y-Säätiö
Meet Juha Kahila, the Head of International Affairs at Y-Foundation, the largest Finnish NGO dedicated to providing housing for homeless individuals and social housing, boasting a housing stock of over 19,000 apartments. Juha plays a pivotal role in coordinating the Nordic Homelessness Alliance and facilitating a workgroup within the Housing First Europe Hub.
With a rich background in housing and homelessness initiatives, Juha previously spearheaded the National Housing First development network in Finland, engaging with all key stakeholders in the field. His experience extends to roles as a front-line support worker, service manager, and CEO of a Housing First service provider, providing him with a comprehensive perspective on housing and homelessness issues.
Juha holds a master’s degree in social services, further enhancing his expertise in the realm of social welfare and housing solutions.
Cheryl Winter, MPH, LICSW Associate Director, CSH – Corporation for Supportive Housing
Cheryl Winter brings to her work a deep knowledge of supportive housing and healthcare integration with significant experience in cross sector partnerships, Medicaid benefit design and implementation and provider capacity building. As the Associate Director of CSH’s California Policy Team, Cheryl’s work focuses on the integration of supportive housing services with healthcare systems, promoting the inclusion of people with lived expertise in state policy and program design efforts, and Medi-Cal policy analysis and implementation. Over the past twelve years, Cheryl has worked with hundreds of housing and homeless service providers as they navigate Medicaid/Medi-Cal contracts, billing, and service delivery.
Prior to focusing on California policy, Cheryl served as a CSH consultant for five years providing technical assistance to communities working to expand access and ensure fidelity to quality supportive housing. Her work focused on healthcare partnerships, systems analyses and innovative service funding opportunities that grow the pipeline of supportive and affordable housing projects, developing cross-system efficiencies, and enabling providers to gain the tools they need to deliver quality supportive housing services.
As the Associate Director of Consulting at CSH, Cheryl oversaw the CSH Quality Certification Program that evaluates and certifies high performing quality supportive housing projects across the United States. Cheryl also served as lead designer and instructor for CSH Medicaid Academies for supportive housing and homeless service providers becoming Medicaid providers. She also worked with states completing Supportive Housing Services Medicaid Crosswalks and data analyses targeting high utilizers of crisis health systems.
Prior to joining CSH, Cheryl worked as the Director of Integrated Health for Pathways to Housing DC, where she managed programming that integrated supportive housing, primary care, and behavioral health services. Cheryl also served as the Director of Quality Improvement, overseeing Medicaid quality assurance, claims submissions, staff training, and quality improvement initiatives.
As a Health Policy Fellow at the Missouri Foundation for Health, Cheryl focused her research on health equity and the social determinants of health. Cheryl is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and holds Master’s degrees in Public Health and Social Work from Washington University in St. Lou
