Staff:
Neal Heard – Co-CEO & Leeds Refugee Project Manager. Joined Abigail Housing in March 2018 as our Refugee Project Housing Manager based in Leeds. Neal has over 25 years’ experience working in the voluntary and community sector. Having previously worked in housing, homelessness, advice and community development projects.
Amanda Church Michael – Co-CEO & Bradford Destitution Project Manager. Joined Abigail Housing in November 2017. She is based in Bradford as our Destitution Project Co-ordinator.
Ian Summerskill – Finance Officer & Senior Housing Support Worker
St.Clair Brown – Leeds Volunteer Coordinator
Arash Qalani – Housing Support Worker, Leeds
Diana Flores – Advocacy & Support Worker
Cath Webb – Admin Worker, Bradford
We also have a range of volunteers and social work students on placements from Leeds and Bradford Universities who are a great asset to our team.
Executive Directors:
Dan Howitt (Treasurer), joined the Board of Directors in 2017. He is a qualified Accountant and works for Capita in the role of Controllership Manager.
Ruth Cooke (Chair of Trustees), appointed in February 2020. Her current role is Operations Manager at Solace surviving exile and persecution, a Leeds based Charity for refuges and asylum seekers to access mental health support. Ruth studied at the Angela Ruskin University and achieved in January 2020 a Cert HE in Charity and Social Enterprise Management. Her previous roles include Volunteer and Visitor Manager at Perennial and Learning and Development Manager at Leeds and York Partnership NHS Trust.
Tom Hall has been a Director of Abigail Housing since April 2015 and Chair of the Refugee subgroup since July 2016. He works as a Business Analyst for Alscient but has a keen interest and experience in housing from previous roles as a Housing Needs Officer at Barnet Homes and working for Foundation in Leeds. He studied Economics at Durham University.
Jo Gibson joined the Board of Directors in May 2018. She has over 20 years’ experience working specifically in supported housing and housing management at a senior level. She has an interest in community development and citizen involvement and has developed this in an active aid role with the CQC as an Expert by Experience. She has worked with local authority drug and alcohol commissioners on their service user involvement activities. More recently she joined the Leeds Involving People team and works closely with people with lived experience of using mental health services to ensure their voice is central to the decision making and service design and development processes.
Karim Aref joined the board in November 2020,. Karim is from Egypt and worked as a teaching assistant, teaching Marketing and Management. He also has a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing and Management.and Masters in sustainable operations and Management. Karim started volunteering with the Bradford Destitution Project in 2019; assisting at drop-in, interpreting for our Arabic speaking residents and supporting the needs of our residents. The insight he brings to the organisation is invaluable.
Adam Clark currently works supporting voluntary and community groups to develop infrastructure to involve volunteers and he also manages projects and volunteers for the organisation he works for. He has previously worked as Chief Executive of a homeless charity in Bradford for a number of years where he created several homeless services and sat in a variety of strategic forums. He specifically set up and managed services for destitute people and was involved in conducting research into destitution amongst asylum seekers in Bradford. He was also a member of a local trust fund for seven years and helped to distribute grants to charities working to bring transformation in Bradford.
