Click to see photos from the reception honoring the 2010 Exponent Award recipients.
The 2010 Meyer Foundation Exponent Award winners are featured in The Washington Post.
About Jean-Michel Giraud
Executive Director, Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place
Jean-Michel Giraud began his career in human services in 1982 in a pre-community placement unit in Massachusetts, where he worked with self-injurious and aggressive young adults with intellectual disabilities. He has worked in a variety of community-based settings, including outreach, residential, social recreation, psychiatric rehabilitation, co-occurring disorders and crisis stabilization services. He has extensive experience in nonprofit management. In his previous position as Senior Director of Baltimore & Frederick Behavioral Health Services for Alliance, Inc., he led a team of eight managers and 99 employees providing psychiatric rehabilitation and dual-recovery programs for adults in three jurisdictions in the State of Maryland.
Jean-Michel holds a Master's Degree in American Studies from Montpellier University in France, undergraduate degrees from La Sorbonne Nouvelle and Paris X University, and a Master Certificate in Business Administration from Tulane University in Louisiana. He is a Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioner and has earned a Co-Occurring Disorders Competency Designation from DC COSIG and The Danya Institute. He has served in two CARF-accredited organizations and on the Board of the Community Behavioral Health Association of Maryland. He is a member of the United States Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association.
Jean-Michel joined Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place in April 2006. In February 2009, he was appointed by Mayor Adrian Fenty to serve on the D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Key Accomplishments
Jean-Michel Giraud
Executive Director, Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place
Service Area: District of Columbia
The Community Council for the Homeless began in 1991 as a grassroots, neighborhood initiative to meet the needs of homeless men and women in upper Northwest DC. In 1993 its services were expanded to include a drop-in day care center, free medical and psychiatric care, transitional shelter and permanent housing, and case management. Jean-Michel became executive director in 2006, and his leadership marked a change in the organization's approach to working with the homeless.
The Housing First model moves people into housing without attempting to first address the root issues which may have led to homelessness.
Friendship Place has been so successful as a Housing First service provider that DC offered it additional funding for expansion into other neighborhoods.
They have recently established a new homeless veterans' initiative to end the homelessness of veterans in the nation's capital within two year. The initiative will bring together private services, federal and local government agencies, and veteran service agencies.
Programs have expanded dramatically and Friendship Place has taken an active role in advocacy efforts for the homeless.
They are opening an employment center in October 2010 called Aim Hire, which will provide a customized job search strategy for clients, helping them assess their skills and then utilizing existing programs to get their clients placed.
