David Gillanders has served as the Executive Director of Pathways of Hope since 2017 and serves as the Chair of the Executive Committee for the Family Solutions Collaborative.
Born and raised in North Orange County, David works with the Pathways team focused on housing justice and food security for all North Orange County residents.
David also serves on the FSC Finance and Human Resource Committees.
As Chief Operations Officer, Sara provides leaderships, oversight, and management of Human Options continuum of integrated programs and services. Since 2013, she has capitalized on her experience working with survivors of relationship violence to help establish Human Options as the most comprehensive domestic violence service provider in Orange County. Her passion for the work stems from a lifelong commitment to ending gender-based violence, beginning with a volunteer position at an Orange County-based domestic violence shelter at age 14.
She is a graduate of Washington and Lee University and the University of California Hastings College of the Law, and a member of the California Bar Association. She served as the Chairperson for the Legal Issues Subcommittee of the Orange County Family Violence Council and is an alumnus of the Women’s Foundation of California Solis Policy Institute. She is a member of the HOME (Housing Opportunities Mean Everything) cohort, a group compromised of leadership from domestic violence organizations across California working to eradicate women’s homelessness, and of the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence.
Sara serves as the FSC Secretary and serves on FSC Data and Compliance Committee.
Pooja Bhalla leads Illumination Foundation’s integrated system of housing and healthcare, an advanced approach to addressing the needs of adults, children, and families experiencing homelessness. Her innovative work includes the creation of IFMG, a private medical group which provides onsite medical and mental health services for Illumination Foundation clients; partnering with CHOC to provide primary care and behavioral health counseling to children experiencing homelessness; expanding Illumination Foundation’s recuperative care program, including creating a female-only recuperative care facility; and spearheading the development of an electronic health record system which uses clinical data and machine learning to generate diagnostic risk scores that can be used to tailor the level of services provided to client needs.
Pooja joined the FSC in 2023 and serves on the Marketing and Messaging Committee.
Lisa has served as the CEO at Casa Teresa for six years. During that time she financially stabilized the organization, run a successful capital campaign and launched an innovative program for women and babies leaving the program. Prior to Casa Teresa, she spent more than 20 years in healthcare philanthropy.
When asked why she wanted to serve on the FSC Executive Committee, Lisa said, “I am excited to serve I want to be part of a bigger movement to positively impacting homeless families.”
Lisa serves as the FSC Vice-Chair, Chair of the Marketing and Messaging Committee and also on the FSC Finance Committee.
Timothy Huynh serves as the Chief Program Officer at Mercy House. He began working at Mercy House in 2010 and through 2015 served in a variety of roles on the Development Team including: Grant Writer, Grant Manager, and Director of Grants, Data and Compliance.
Timothy, then returned to Mercy House in 2020 where in his current role, provides executive oversight to the execution and implementation of Mercy House’s various programs. He holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of California, Irvine.
Timothy serves on the FSC Finance Committee.
Nishtha Mohendra, is a creative and committed strategy builder, program implementer and a nonprofit management specialist. Nishtha has 12+ years of working in the social work sector and nonprofit community on issues of homelessness, violence against women, poverty, anti-oppression, family crises, capacity building and community-driven actions. She brings with her years of rich experience spanning three countries- India, Canada and the USA
Currently, Nishtha serves as Chief Program Officer of Families Forward. In this role, she is responsible for providing strategic direction, management, and coordination for Families Forward programs and services. She is currently on the board for People for Housing and Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) for Orange County. She is an active member of the local Continuum of Care Board subcommittees. She co-chairs the Emergency Shelter committee and is a member of the Coordinated Entry System (CES) Steering committee, Data Performance and Management committee and the HMIS working group.
Nishtha started her career in India with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) where she was part of the National AIDS Control Organization at the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. As a technical manager she helped build five-year strategic plan for prevention and control of HIV/AIDS all over the country and instituted the pioneer prevention program for vulnerable population like female sex workers. In addition she played an instrumental role in the team that helped plan and draft the first Anti-Trafficking Bill for India. In Canada, Nishtha was involved with the domestic violence and homeless shelter work. She gained foothold in managing a shelter and developing individualized and need-driven programs for the underserved sections of the community. She continued this work locally in Orange County with Human Options before she immersed herself in the issues of housing and homelessness. She led the program and services for Pathways of Hope as the Director of Program before joining Families Forward. She has a published article in Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIMA) journal called Vikalpa, and had also presented a paper at the 2012 International AIDS Conference in Washington DC.
Nishtha serves as the Chair for the FSC Data and Compliance Committee.