Our Team

Stephen D'Souza

Executive Director


778.945.7789

Stephen joined the HSABC team in September 2019 as the Executive Director. He has spent decades working collaboratively with local and provincial partners to design innovative solutions to reducing homelessness, poverty and isolation.

Stephen is the Co-Chair for the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition, a member of the Metro Vancouver Reaching Home Community Advisory Board and a member of the Seniors Housing Lab design team.

Stephen completed an Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurialism from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University in 2016, and the United Way of the Lower Mainland’s Public Policy Institute in 2011. He is also a guest lecturer at Simon Fraser University within the Faculty of Health Sciences and The Beedie School of Business.

Jim Mandelin

Membership & Training Coordinator


604.568.3373

Jim began with SNBC in 2012 and will be familiar to many of our members. Jim has overcome significant obstacles in his personal life and we are honoured to have him be part of the team. Jim started using alcohol at the age of ten to cope with a violent childhood and his criminal life began at age of twelve. Jim ran away from home at fifteen to the Downtown East-side of Vancouver and streets of Calgary. Seven years of drugs, alcohol, gang life, prison time and homelessness took its toll and at twenty-two, Jim had a drug induced heart attack, was pronounced dead in a hospital, only to come back to life. Jim attributes this near-death experience as his impetus for his change.

Jim began his clean time in 1977 and remains clean to present, became a counsellor (26 years) and public speaker (1988 to present), and counselled over 600 people who had experienced trauma, addiction and homelessness. He has shared his story with quarter of a million school children, incarcerated youth as well as unique university students most who where in training to be Police Officers, Prison Guards, Social Workers. Jim talks about the perils caused by trauma that lead to addiction, crime and homelessness!! After retiring from counselling, Jim joined SNBC now HSABC.

Chloe Good

Program & Project Lead


778.945.7791

Chloe Good transitioned into the non-profit sector 8 years ago bringing 13 years of business management experience into the field. Her previous non-profit work has included proposal and grant writing, member relations, as well as fundraising event and campaign planning and delivery. Chloe joined the Greater Vancouver Shelter Strategy in 2015 as part of the Homeless Seniors Community of Practice. This peer-based model was designed to better enable front line service providers to meet the needs of a growing number of seniors accessing homelessness services.

Since this time, her role with the organization has continued to grow through multiple research projects and community engagement initiatives with key stakeholders across Metro Vancouver. Relationship management and strategic thinking are strengths that she enjoys applying to all aspects of her work. She is extremely excited about the opportunity to connect with and support a greater number of service providers through the successful merger between SNBC and GVSS. Building on the foundation of research, training, and resource development of both organizations provides the Homelessness Services Association of BC with a unique opportunity to strengthen provincial networks and create a unified voice for the sector.

Zharkyn Baiazova

Communications & Events Coordinator



Zharkyn completed her Master’s Degree in Political Science at Simon Fraser University. Her research interests lie primarily in the area of good governance and development. Zharkyn has previously worked in the non-profit sector implementing projects advocating access to healthcare, education, employment, and other social services for the marginalized groups in Central Asia.

Michelle Jarvis

Webinar Host & Social Media Content Creator



Michelle joined the homelessness helping field after a 16-year career in hospitality with over a decade in management roles. Drawn initially to the field because of her love of people, it made sense to move into a field close to her heart when restaurants were shut down in March of 2020.

In addition to her professional skills and talents Michelle’s personal history has helped to develop who she is and taught her many life lessons that are valuable and transferable. A survivor of extensive traumas in her youth, leading to homelessness and addiction Michelle has managed to not become another statistic in the charts. Michelle’s nearly limitless compassion for all people stems from these early experiences and informs every aspect of her life. Her sense of ethics and morality is also informed by the injustices witnessed and subjected to.

Though not always easy Michelle always stands for what is right, and advocates for those who are silent and unseen by the masses. Michelle happily brings this sense of justice to her role at HSABC and is happy to be applying all her skills to help inform and empower those working directly with people experiencing homelessness. This creates a positive feedback circle of better employees, better services, better outcomes.

Tembra-Lynn Pattengale-Blair

Program & Office Administrator


778.945.0322

Tembra-Lynn began with HSABC in August 2021. Her unique experience in administrative environments, coupled with front-line service on Vancouver’s Downtown East Side, led her to the role. She comes from a background of 15+ years working in service-oriented environments. Her goal is to support meaningful change that positively impacts vulnerable communities.  

Tembra-Lynn graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in General Studies from Simon Fraser University in 2015. She considers herself a true inter-disciplinarian and spent over 7 years, across four countries, pursuing her undergrad. She strives to creatively and intellectually engage interdisciplinary perspectives to help others.

James Caspersen

Project Lead Consultant,

Provincial & Metro Vancouver Point in Time Counts and HomeFront



James began his work in the homelessness and housing sector in British Columbia as an extension of his education and early career in public health starting his career as part of the BC Ministry of Health’s Patient Reported Experiences Measurement Steering Committee. Since then, James has worked as a Project Manager for projects in the homelessness serving sector across Metro Vancouver and the Province. These include Housing First planning and implementation, quality improvement, and, since 2016, Point-in-Time Homeless Counts.

This experience includes working as an Area Coordinator for Richmond and Ridge Meadows in the 2016 Metro Vancouver Homeless Count, as a Project Manager for the 2018 and 2020 Provincial Homeless Count, the 2019 City of Vancouver Homeless Count, as well as Implementation Manager for the 2022 Homeless Count in Metro Vancouver. In his role as Project Manager with these counts, James has been responsible for project oversight, recruitment and supervision of Area Coordinators, and managing key deliverables in each community.

James brings with him the implementation experience to ensure methodological consistency with past Counts, positive relationships with communities that participated in the previous PiT Counts in the region, and experience directly providing the services this project aims to advocate for.

 

Thiyustun “Rocky” James

Project Consultant,

Provincial & Metro Vancouver Point in Time Counts and HomeFront



Rocky has been working in the Indigenous non-profit sector for fifteen plus years. For the past six years he has been working as a policy analyst, and for the past year and a half as an entrepreneur. Rocky deploys three approaches to his work. First, he works to ensure that Indigenous oral histories provide the foundation for policy design, implementation, and evaluation. Second, he brings a queer Indigenous lens to policy. Meaning he provides critiques on policy that perpetuate power imbalances and the oppression of Two-Spirit people. Third, as entrepreneur, Rocky advocates for the inclusion of Indigenous owned business across the government, private, and non-profit sectors. Rocky has worked at the local, provincial and national levels.