Intro | Board of Directors | Management

Management

Karen Mahar
Vice President of Strategy Management
Camillus House

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Ms. Mahar, Vice President of Strategy Management, is tasked with facilitating the organization-wide alignment of efforts to carry out the organization’s plan and vision for ending chronic homelessness. Areas of responsibility include developing new initiatives, overseeing grants management, and coordinating development of the New Camillus House Center. In addition, she directs Camillus’ Institute of Homeless Studies, which aims to build capacity for ending homelessness through knowledge dissemination and generation of original research. She joined Camillus House in 1994 and has served in a variety of administrative positions during her 15 years with the organization.

Selected for the Camillus Scholar’s program in 2006, Ms. Mahar is enrolled as a PhD student in Comparative Sociology at Florida International University. Her dissertation focuses on urban inequality, homelessness and the role of social capital in preventing homelessness. She also earned her masters degree in Comparative Sociology at FIU. As an undergraduate she attended the University of Miami, from which she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelors degree in Motion Picture Production and Creative Writing. She is also a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional (LEED AP).

Ms. Mahar is a Board Member of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust and the Miami Coalition for the Homeless, and has served on the Boards of the Allegany Franciscan Foundation, Haitian Women of Miami, and the Florida Office of Collegiate Volunteerism, as well as Chair of the Miami-Dade Homeless Providers’ Forum. She was a Fellow with Class II of the Miami Fellows Initiative, a leadership project of the Dade Community Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, graduating from the two-year long program in 2003.