Mary Frances is Vice President, Training and Technical Assistance at the Alliance. She has spent more than 17 years helping communities reimagine their homelessness response systems. Mrs. Kenion’s Continuum of Care (CoC) experience includes implementing programs that maintain fidelity to Housing First, developing performance-based contracting, program design and implementation (including coordinated entry, housing problem-solving, and unified shelter), program and system-related policy development, compliance/monitoring, and coalition building to advance racial equity.

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 CoCs, 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 DC native turned Southern Maryland transplant where she lives with her wife, their twin boys, and dog. In her spare time, she serves as an elementary school PTO president, secretary of the Charles County Commission on Individuals with Disabilities, and assistant 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.