The Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness (PPTFH) is a 501(c)(3) governed by a Board of Directors that include officers (President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary) and members who have ownership of various tasks (Fundraising, Outreach, LAPD Liaison).
The Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness (PPTFH) is a 501(c)(3) governed by a Board of Directors that include officers (President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary) and members who have ownership of various tasks (Fundraising, Outreach, LAPD Liaison).
Under the Board’s guidance are five committees – Client Outreach, Volunteer Response Team, Volunteer, Fundraising, and Communications – comprised of community volunteers that work to accomplish the Task Force’s strategic plan.
Sharon Browning has been a resident of Pacific Palisades for nearly 30 years and attends Palisades Presbyterian Church. She served as a three-time Elder on her former Presbyterian Church’s governing board. She is a former President of the Bel Air Bay Club Board of Directors. She is a former Licensed Clinical Social Worker, adoption worker with the Los Angeles County Department of Adoptions and received her master’s degree in social work from UCLA. Following her completion of the CORO Women’s program she became Assistant Director of Training and Programing for the CORO Foundation, Southern California.
For the past 25 years, Sharon has been the owner and principal of Sharon Browning & Associates, an issues management and consensus planning consulting firm. She has worked as Lead Facilitator for Orange County’s 10-year Plan to End Homelessness and Lead Facilitator for Orange County’s Mental Health Services Act Steering Committee.
Sharon Kilbride is a sixth-generation member of the Marquez family that held the original family land grant of the Palisades and Santa Monica Canyon in 1839. She has resided in Santa Monica Canyon for 58 years, graduated from Palisades High and Santa Monica College, and retired from Safeway Inc. in 2008 after working 33 years as a corporate auditor. She is currently on the Board of SMCCA and BOCA neighborhood associations. For her community involvement, she received the Pacific Palisades Citizen of the Year award in December, 2015. Additionally, she serves as treasurer for the Sanctuario San Lorenzo garden located in front of the historic Marquez family cemetery. She works on preserving the Marquez family cemetery on an ongoing basis, and has orchestrated an educational program for 4th graders from local elementary schools which takes place in the cemetery. This program teaches the students about rancho history in their own backyard.
Pam, and her husband Chris, have lived in the Palisades since 1974. They have two adult children and two grandchildren. Pam has her doctorate of education from UCLA and worked in research, strategic and program planning and evaluation for a number of years. Pam then changed career directions and received certification as an educational therapist. She worked one-on-one with students with various learning challenges, initially as a school employee and later in private practice. She has served on various non-profit boards, is a past President of St. Matthew’s Board of Trustees, St. Matthew’s Parents’ Council, and the Bel-Air Bay Club and was an elected Vestry Junior Warden of St. Matthew’s Parish Church.
Helga Jessen was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1965. She spent almost 50 years working in the banking industry. In later years, she held the position of Senior Vice President and Compliance Manager at City National Bank, Los Angeles. She is now retired. She has served as the Treasurer for the New Basin Blues Running Club for the past 15 years. Helga has lived in Pacific Palisades for 22 years.
Christine has lived in the Palisades for over 30 years. She holds an M.A. in History and B.A. in Asian Studies. Now retired, she had a long career at The RAND Corporation as a writer-editor and communications manager. Her role at RAND involved making scientific and technical information understandable to the public. In joining PPTFH, she wanted to apply her communication skills to help clarify the complex issues and solutions surrounding homelessness in our community. A native Angeleno, Christine established international ties early. As a teenager, she was an exchange student in Japan, and her family hosted a French student for a year. In college, Christine returned to Japan for intensive language study. These experiences, plus extensive foreign travel in later years, have given Christine an appreciation for different ways of life, as well as the universal primacy of home. She is a classically trained pianist and singer, and she serves as a docent at the Getty Center in Brentwood.
Chris studied at the University of Southern California where he received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration: Entrepreneurial Studies and graduated Order of the Coif from USC’s Gould School of Law. Currently he is a partner at Seidler Equity Partners, a private equity firm managing over $2.0 billion in total assets with activities throughout the United States and Australia. Previously he was a transactional attorney, focusing on mergers and acquisitions, with O’Melveny & Meyers.
Chris, his wife and four children live in Pacific Palisades where he is a member of the Ministerial Council and emeritus Bishop of the Pacific Palisades congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is a founding member of the John A. Widtsoe Foundation and an Editorial Advisory Board Member of the Public Square Magazine.
Kim Clary was a sales and marketing director in industrial real estate for many years. When the opportunity arose, she returned to school and earned her master’s degree in social work (MSW) with an emphasis in community organizing from UCLA in 1986. Her MSW thesis was on homeless families in the Los Angeles area. As a social worker, she worked in the foster care system, with homeless individuals and families, and psychiatric hospitals for the mentally ill. She has been involved in progressive causes and campaigns throughout most of her adult life, including the United Farm Workers Union, Campaign for Economic Democracy, and U.S. Out of Central America. She has been involved with the Task Force since its inception and coordinates the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count sponsored by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LASHA).
Mary Elizabeth Horan is a licensed Clinical Psychologist with a Ph.D. from The George Washington University and a B.A. in Psychology and French from The College of the Holy Cross. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the Reiss-Davis Child Study Center. In addition to a private practice, she taught in the Saint Matthew’s Parent-Child program and supervises graduate students who provide counseling services in inner city schools.
As a community service volunteer, Mary Elizabeth provided psychological assessment services at Saint Raphael, an inner-city Catholic school. She was active in the Corpus Christi community, co-chairing the school fundraiser and the Louise League (funding retirement for the Sisters of St. Louis). She coordinated parish involvement in St. Robert’s weekend food service for the homeless and a monthly food collection. She served on the Mother’s Guild at Loyola High School and the House Committee at the Bel Air Bay Club.
Mary Elizabeth and her husband, both from the East Coast, have lived in the Palisades for 30 years and raised three sons here.
John Jacobs is a managing director at PGIM Real Estate and portfolio manager of its U.S. investment strategies focused on core plus and high yield debt investments for institutional investors Based in Los Angeles, John is responsible for assisting with business development and client relationship management, while leading all investment efforts for our core plus strategies – from deal selection to underwriting, due diligence and closing.
Previously, John led PGIM Real Estate’s European debt originations and transactions in the U.K. and Continental Europe. His responsibilities extended across core, core plus and value-add investment activity in the region and he was chair of the European Core Debt Investment Committee with responsibility for credit oversight.
Earlier, John was head of originations for Southern California and the Pacific Southwest Over nearly 10 years, his primary origination activity extended to over $15 billion and included responsibility for borrower management, structuring, pricing and negotiation of investments across a broad range of commercial mortgage products.Prior to joining PGIM Real Estate in 2003, John held previous positions at Goldman Sachs and GE Capital.
John is an active member of the Urban Land Institute and sits on the European Office and Mixed-Use Council and the U.S. Industrial and Office Product Council. John has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Brigham Young University.
Lou is a sixteen-year Pacific Palisades resident and lives in the Alphabet Streets with his wife and two sons. He is the owner of a global cyber security and technology firm and was born in Columbus, Mississippi where his father served as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, he has also completed post-graduate training at UCLA, The Harvard-Smithsonian Center, Stanford University and the NASA Goddard Institute.
Lou has served as an At Large Representative on the Pacific Palisades Community Council, Secretary of PAPA (Palisades 4th of July); Special Projects board member for the Pacific Palisades Residents Association and Board member of the Pacific Palisades Dog Park.
Carol Sanborn is a 39-year resident of Pacific Palisades with backgrounds in healthcare and law. She is a graduate of Loyola Law School and previously worked as an Occupational Therapist in cardiac rehabilitation and with chronic pain patients. She has held the position of Director of Pastoral Ministry for Corpus Christi Church for nearly 20 years. In her present employment she coordinates community outreach efforts with various Westside service organizations. Carol also serves as the Co-Chair of the Catholic Coalition for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles.
Bruce Schwartz is a 16 year resident of Pacific Palisades. He is currently a real estate agent with Palisades Realty. He went to Hamilton High in Los Angeles and Santa Monica College. He was an Agricultural Consultant in Kern County for 20 years specializing in plant nutrition programs for all field, row, vegetable, nut, stone fruit, and tree and vine crops. He currently serves on Pacific Palisades Community Council as a community organizations representative and sits on the Board of Palisades PRIDE, a community service organization. He is also the recipient of the Pacific Palisades Community Council’s “Golden Sparkplug Award”, for noteworthy contributions to our community.
We realize it takes a village to achieve our mission of helping the homeless, keeping our town safe, and involving the community on the issues of homelessness. If you care about our mission, have time to help, and would like to join this exciting community work, please consider volunteering with us!
info@pptfh.org