Yolanda Johnson-Peterkin

Yolanda works as the ED of Housing for the Mayor’s Office for Criminal Justice and formerly worked for NYCHA. Influenced by her life experiences, Yolanda has dedicated her life to helping people with justice history access safe housing. There are over 100K New Yorkers released from prisons and jails annually. Accessible housing is essential not only to their stability and success, but to the wider public to ensure safety.

Yolanda is laser-focused on this issue. She previously worked with NYCHA to move decision makers to allow formerly incarcerated people to reunite with their families in NYCHA and is the force behind “Open Minds, Open Doors (OMOD)," the informative work with landlords and brokers to provide information and data on people returning. Her work has reunified over 300 people with their families in NYCHA apartments and last year 250 people were placed in apartments. But Yolanda isn't done yet: she's building coalitions to change hearts and minds across NYC to provide more safe housing for justice impacted people.