Past Events

• Vice Dean Cynthia Adams, JD '83, Vice Dean and Clinical Professor of Law, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
• Madison Steele, JD Candidate and Indiana Health Law Review Volume XXI: Editor-in-Chief, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
• Nicole Bojrab, JD Candidate and Indiana Health Law Review Volume XXI: Symposium Editor, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

• The Intersection of Homelessness & Health: A Public Health Issue
• Stephen Brown, MSW, LCSW, Director of Preventive Emergency Medicine, Senior Director of Social and Behavioral Health Transformation & Advocacy, University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System (UI Health)
• Moderator: Ray Charles Lay, CEO, SMI Enterprises; Board of Directors National Alliance on Mental Illness

• Accessing Housing
• Emily Benfer (Virtual), JD '05, LLM, Associate Professor of Clinical Law and Director of Health Equity Policy & Advocacy Clinic, George Washington University Law School; Visiting Research Collaborator, Eviction Lab, Princeton University
• Florence Wagman Roisman, LLB, William F. Harvey Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Professor, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
• Carlton Martin, JD '12, Pro Bono Director, National Homelessness Law Center
• Jacob Purcell, JD Candidate and Indiana Law Review Volume 57: Senior Executive Editor, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
• Moderator: Ray Charles Lay, CEO, SMI Enterprises; Board of Directors National Alliance on Mental Illness

• Housing First Model
• Fran Quigley, JD '87, MA, Clinical Professor and Director of Health and Human Rights Clinic, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
• Siya U. Hegde, JD, Staff Attorney, Housing Not Handcuffs Campaign, National Homelessness Law Center
• Adam Musters, MSW, JD Candidate, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
• Moderator: Ray Charles Lay, CEO, SMI Enterprises; Board of Directors National Alliance on Mental Illness

• Lunch provided for registered attendees If you have any dietary restrictions, please note those when you register

• Best Practices to Protect Children from Lead Poisoning
• Carlton Waterhouse, JD, PhD, Professor of Law and Director of Environmental and Climate Justice Center, Howard University School of Law
• Moderator: Chelsey Lang, JD Candidate and Indiana Health Law Review Volume XXI: Executive Managing Editor, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law; Executive Board Member, IndyBar

• Environmental Impacts on Housing
• State Representative Carolyn B. Jackson, MA, District 1 Representative, Indiana House of Representatives; Vice Chair, Indiana Black Legislative Caucus
• Valerie Tachtiris, JD, Deputy General Counsel, Indiana Department of Environmental Management; Adjunct Professor, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University-Indianapolis
• Jennifer Phillips, JD '19, Deputy General Counsel, Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority
• Moderator: Chelsey Lang, JD Candidate and Indiana Health Law Review Volume XXI: Executive Managing Editor, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law; Executive Board Member, IndyBar

Bio: Stephen is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) who worked for 8 years in both adult and pediatric emergency rooms at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UI Health).

He has split appointments between the Department of Emergency Medicine, the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Health Affairs, and the Institute of Government & Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

He leads the Better Health Through Housing program, UI Health’s housing program for the chronically homeless. It is the longest running healthcare-to-housing program (since 2015) and has housed more homeless persons than any other single hospital in the country. He also runs ComPAcT, a team-based care program that works to better coordinate the care for healthcare super-utilizers.

His role as a Senior Director is a policy position that addresses systemic social justice, working upstream with the courts, law enforcement, State behavioral health agencies and community-based services to divert persons with mental illness, substance use and homelessness away from the Emergency Department and the criminal justice system into behavioral health care.

His previous tech experience working at Motorola Inc as UNIX Systems Product Development Manager enables him to work with healthcare and government information technology (IT) to align healthcare and social service interoperability, and the development of data-driven public policy. Stephen was the developer of SouthSideHealth.org, the first web-based social services resource directory.

Stephen has appeared in over 40 media interviews, including WNPR, CNN, U.S. News and World Report, Fox News and ABC. He is the co-author of a Health Affairs article “Mr. G and the Revolving Door: Breaking the Readmissions Cycle at a Safety Net Hospitals”.

Bio: Carlton Waterhouse is an international expert on environmental law and environmental justice, as well as reparations and redress for historic injustices. In 2021, he was appointed by President Joe Biden in the role of Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Land and Emergency Management at the Environmental Protection Agency and nominated to the United States Senate to serve as the Assistant Administrator for the office. During his two years serving in the Office of Land and Emergency Management, he oversaw the nation’s programs for toxic waste site remediation, community revitalization and redevelopment through contaminated site cleanup, hazardous and solid waste materials management, chemical plant safety, and emergency response to toxic spills, fires, and explosions. He is a Fulbright research scholar and is a former board member of the Environmental Law Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Counsel. He actively participates in national and local organizations protecting civil rights and advancing environmental protection and justice. His views have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Professor Waterhouse examines critical social issues facing the country and the world in his scholarship. His forthcoming book with Cambridge University Press explores the historic and contemporary role of the United States Supreme Court in maintaining and dismantling racial dominance. His scholarship includes essays, articles, and book chapters focused on the ethical and legal dimensions of environmental justice and reparations. Carlton is a Professor of Law and the founding director of the Environmental and Climate Justice Center at the Howard University School of Law School.

Bio: Florence Wagman Roisman is the William F. Harvey Professor of Law and a Chancellor’s Professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, where she has been on the faculty since 1997. She teaches Property, Administrative Law, Housing Discrimination and Segregation, Health and Housing Law, and a course in the Civil Rights Movement. She has taught, written, and litigated about housing issues since 1967 and now is co-authoring a casebook on The Right to Fair Housing that is scheduled to be published by Aspen in 2025. She worked for decades as a lawyer with the DC Neighborhood Legal Services Program and the National Housing Law Project and has won many awards for advocacy and teaching.

Bio: Emily A. Benfer is an associate professor of clinical law at George Washington University Law School where she directs the Health Equity, Policy & Advocacy Clinic. In addition, as a research collaborator with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, she conducts legal mapping and policy surveillance of U.S. eviction and housing policy, including eviction moratoria, rental assistance, and right to counsel. Her clinic practice and research focus on the intersection of social determinants of health, racial inequity, and poverty with an emphasis on housing and eviction policies. Emily has widely published, testified before Congress, and appeared in numerous media outlets on these topics. Her research has been cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and in multiple federal bills and court orders. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the White House and the American Rescue Plan Implementation Team. Emily’s volunteer activities have included serving as the appointed Chair of the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Eviction, Housing Stability, and Equity, a member of the Legal Services Corporation U.S. Eviction Law Study Advisory Board, a policy advisor to the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership, and a volunteer for the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project. Emily also served as an Equal Justice Works Fellow and a Peace Corps volunteer. She has received numerous commendations for her efforts to advance health equity and housing justice, including the American Public Health Association David P. Rall Award for Advocacy and an American Bar Association Presidential Commendation. She was named one of Chicago’s Top 40 Lawyers Under 40 by the National Law Journal and recognized with the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership Outstanding MLP Award and the Clinical Legal Education Award for the best case or project in the United States

Bio: Carlton is the Pro Bono Director of the National Homelessness Law Center in Washington, DC. His work involves managing relationships with the Center’s pro bono partners that annually provide nearly four million dollars of in-kind pro bono services. He also works on a wide range of legal and policy issues impacting the unhoused, such as: criminalization, voting rights, and racial equity issues.

Carlton has consistently worked to provide access to justice for the most marginalized populations. Prior to the Law Center, he was a Staff Attorney with the Indiana Supreme Court, where he was responsible for directing the legal diversity pipeline ICLEO Program and assisting with the State’s access to justice efforts through the Coalition for Court Access (CCA). Carlton also worked directly with imprisoned clients on post-conviction relief cases as an Indiana Deputy State Public Defender. Additionally, he served as the Project GRACE Attorney and Director with the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic where he primarily served individuals re-entering from jail and prison and homeless veterans with license issues, expungement, family law, bankruptcy, public benefits advocacy, and housing.

Carlton received his B.A. in Sociology and African and African American Studies from Indiana University in Bloomington and earned his J.D. from Robert H. McKinney School of Law in 2012. He has taught in higher education since 2015, and is a former president of the Marion County Bar Association in Indianapolis, IN. Carlton’s leadership has been recognized in various ways throughout his short career. He was recognized as one of Indiana’s top 15 up and coming lawyers and legal leaders in 2019, identified as one of the National Black Lawyers Top 100 as one of the top 40 attorneys under 40, and was recently won the National Bar Associations (NBA) 40 Under 40 Nation’s Best Advocates Award.

Bio: Jacob Purcell is a 3L student at the IU McKinney School of Law. He is a former Research Assistant at the Indiana University Public Policy Institute and a former Data Assistant at the Indianapolis Legal Aid Society. After his first year of law school, he became a Research Assistant for Professor Fran Quigley, Director of the IU McKinney Health and Human Rights Clinic, and wrote the report A Decent Place to Live: Improving Indiana's Public and Private Habitability Enforcement Mechanisms. He is also the current Senior Executive Editor for the Indiana Law Review. His forthcoming law review Note, Habitability in the Hoosier State: Protecting the Health and Safety of Indiana’s Extended-Stay Motel Guests, also examines Indiana's housing crisis. After law school, he plans to pursue housing advocacy, and is interested in public policy.

Bio: Fran Quigley is a clinical professor of law, teaching in the Health and Human Rights Clinic. Students in the Health and Human Rights Clinic advocate for the rights of the poor through direct trial court representation and broader policy advocacy, with a special focus on the human right to safe and affordable housing.

Professor Quigley is the author of several academic journal articles on social justice and human rights, multiple mass media articles and columns, and five books, including most recently Faith in Action: An Introduction to Religious Socialism (Orbis Books, 2021). He writes the newsletter 'Housing is a Human Right' at housingisahumanright.substack.com

Previous to his work at the law school, he served as the first Chief of Staff for Congresswoman Julia Carson and as the executive director of ACLU of Indiana.

Bio: Siya Hegde (she/her) is a Staff Attorney for the National Homelessness Law Center’s, where her efforts have recently focused on advancing a human right to adequate housing and supporting litigation strategies to decriminalize homelessness in New York City. In her prior work as a Civil Public Defender and Housing Policy Counsel at The Bronx Defenders, Siya represented individuals threatened by eviction, landlord harassment, substandard living conditions, and other civil legal consequences, and partnered with housing organizers, directly impacted tenants, and other movement lawyers on local legislative advocacy efforts.

In law school, Siya was the Executive Editor of the North Carolina Journal of International Law, the Co-Coordinator of the Dean's Fellow Program, and member of the International Law Moot Court Team. She interned at the Wake County Public Defender's Office in Raleigh, North Carolina and the Southern Africa Litigation Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa. Before law school, she was a Research Assistant at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

Her work and commentary have been featured in press outlets, such as the New York Daily News, Times Union, City Limits, the New York Law Journal, and the Georgetown Journal of Poverty Law and Policy. She has also been quoted in the New York Times, Bloomberg News, and The Riverdale Press. She earned her law degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 2018 and her B.A. in Environmental Policy from Colby College in 2013. She is currently based in Manhattan.

Bio: Adam Musters is a US Army Veteran with two combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He has a Master's Degree in Social Work from IUPUI where he focused on mental health and substance use treatment. He has worked with homeless veterans as a social worker with HUD-VASH at the VA. He has also worked with the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention - Indy helping to update the Handbook of Help, a resource for individuals struggling with homelessness. Currently, he is a 3L JD Candidate at IU McKinney with a focus in public interest and, specifically, the intersection of law and housing.

Bio: State Representative Carolyn B. Jackson represents Indiana House District 1 in the General Assembly. She was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives on Nov. 6, 2018.

Jackson is the ranking minority member of the Indiana House Select Committee on Government Reduction. She also serves on the Environmental Affairs and Family, Children and Human Affairs committees. In December 2022, Rep. Jackson was named Vice Chair of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus.

While working on her master's degree, she interned with the Cole County Juvenile Detention Center as a juvenile officer. Her main focus in that position was to protect the rights of children. As a practicing sociologist and counselor, Jackson pursued a career with the Cook County Adult Probation Department retiring with 30 years of service.

Jackson is a devoted wife, mother, and grandmother. She and her husband Eric have two sons, Eric II and Thomas.

Carolyn has always been a strong advocate for volunteerism. She was a former adult probation officer and supervisor, past president of the board of directors for the Community Center Development Corporation (Ophelia Steen Family and Health Services Center) and Hammond Library Advisory Board.

She is currently affiliated with the Hammond Branch of the NAACP, Northwest Indiana League of Women Voters Calumet Area, Hammond High Parent/Teachers Advisory Board and the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

In her spare time, Jackson enjoys her favorite activities: downhill skiing, golfing, gardening and traveling.

Bio: Valerie currently serves as the Deputy General Counsel for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Prior to that, she spent almost ten years at the Indiana Attorney General’s Office where she defended and prosecuted environmental matters for state agencies including the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, Department of Health, and Department of Natural Resources in matters before administrative, state, and federal courts. She also teaches Environmental Law at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

Bio: Jennifer Phillips was co-lead for a coalition that advocated for the Indiana Department of Health to update its service requirements for lead-poisoned children to align with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards. Jennifer graduated summa cum laude from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law with a Graduate Certificate in Civil and Human Rights and has additionally researched lead poisoning in the context of fair housing and environmental justice. Since 2019, she has worked as an attorney for the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, where she currently serves as Deputy General Counsel. Jennifer lives on the west side of Indianapolis and enjoys spending time with her husband and newborn son, walking outdoors, and trying new recipes.

Bio: Ray Lay is a formerly homeless, honorably discharged, U.S. Marine living with a dual diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder and poly substance issues. Ray is successfully over 18 years past his last hospitalization and over 16 years clean and sober. Mr. Lay termed out from the Indiana Balance of State after 7 years. He is a member of the Marion County Continuum of Care, and an elected member of the Indiana Board of Directors and National Board of Directors for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Today Ray has his own home and is the business owner of SMI Enterprises LLC.

Bio: Chelsey Lang is from southwest Michigan and has a background in geology, environmental studies, and secondary education. She has enjoyed exploring how health and the environment intersect with the law through her work as a McKinney Climate fellow and interning with the IU McKinney Health and Human Rights Clinic as well as Indiana Legal Services. In the future, she hopes to work in environmental law. This coming year, Chelsey's note, "A Crisis Set to Repeat Itself: Improving Regulation Following the Catastrophe of the West Calumet Housing Complex," will be published in the Indiana Health Law Review's spring journal