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Tanya Tull

Tanya Tull

Tanya Tull, a leading expert on family homelessness, is both a social activist and social entrepreneur. In 1980, she founded Para Los Niños in L.A.’s Skid Row. In 1988, she founded Beyond Shelter, introducing an innovation in the field – “housing first” to end family homelessness, which has since helped to transform public policy and practice on a national scale. She was a Senior Fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs and is currently a Senior Fellow at Ashoka, the global organization of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Partnering for Change is the fifth nonprofit organization she has founded.

Blog Posts

  • May 15, 2012

    My Life in the Third World of America

    Photo caption: Previously homeless for six months, mother and child celebrate their new lives in an apartment of their own.

    In November 1979, an article appeared in the L.A. Times describing hundreds of children of all ages living in the decaying, transient hotels of L.A.'s Skid Row.

    Within days, a woman possessed, I began seeking a way to help and soon created a nonprofit organization, Para Los Niños (For the Children).

    Within one short year, we opened a childcare center in a renovated warehouse for 90 children from 6 weeks to five years of age, pulled from streets, alleys, and hotels of the area. And that was just the beginning.

    I soon found myself in a pivotal position in Skid Row as major changes began to occur around me. Thus began my 30-year career in what I call the Third World of America.

  • August 8, 2011

    How I Did It: Tanya Tull, Founder, Partnering for Change

    In December 1966, I was a 23-year-old college graduate, with a newborn son and an Israeli artist husband who was new to this country and unemployed. We had moved to Los Angeles seeking work, but nothing had materialized. Our money was gone, and we had exhausted all other resources. With rent due, we entered the welfare office in West L.A. in desperation and qualified for assistance. This was soon after the Watts Riots, and the L.A. County Department of Public Social Services was training college graduates to be social workers. I applied and within 3 months was assigned a caseload of 60 “welfare mothers” in South Central L.A. Within a year, I was transferred to the downtown/Skid Row area, to work with the chronically mentally ill, who were then being released into the community by the hundreds, as state mental hospitals were being closed. My then husband soon found full time work himself, and our nightmare was over...

Maria Shriver © 2012. All rights reserved.

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