Mary Frances is Chief Equity Officer at the Alliance. She has spent more than 18 years helping communities improve their homelessness response systems. Prior to joining the Alliance, Mrs. Kenion was a Senior Manager, Homeless Services at ICF where she worked closely with communities on accelerating placements to permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness while reducing racial disparities in outcomes within homeless response systems.  

She led several major projects including: the development and delivery of a racial equity foundational workshop series for dozens of communities, spearheaded the development of a racial equity learning collaborative for HUD training and technical assistance providers, led Oregon’s Task Force on Homelessness and Racial Disparities from 2021-2023, and co-designed the framework grounded in targeted universalism for Oregon’s Executive Order 23_02 to address unsheltered homelessness in the state. 

Mary Frances is a D.C. native turned Southern Maryland transplant where she lives with her wife, their twin boys, and dog. She holds an M.P.A. and B.A. in social science with a minor in sociology from Ashford University. In her spare time, she serves as secretary of the Charles County Commission on Individuals with Disabilities and swimming coach for Special Olympics Southern Maryland.  Mrs. Kenion is a member of the Impact Center’s Women’s Executive Leadership Program fall 2024 cohort.