Cheryl Markham is a Strategic Policy Advisor in the Director’s Office of the King County Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS). In that capacity, Cheryl is a leader in a number of the department’s strategic cross-sector initiatives that are designed to reduce, and eventually eliminate, inequitable health and well-being outcomes in King County, conditions which have roots in historic patterns of discrimination. Cheryl has extensive experience in the field of affordable housing and community development, and has worked as an organizer and an innovator of programs and initiatives that are designed to increase positive outcomes for the most vulnerable people. Cheryl is currently the advisor from DCHS for King County’s Communities of Opportunity (COO) Initiative, which is focused on closing gaps related to inequitable outcomes in communities in King County in the bottom 40% for indicators of well-being. COO is a cross-sector public/private initiative that supports and elevates partnership work with community-based organizations to illuminate and further develop their community assets. Ms. Markham is a 1997 graduate of the City University of New York School of Law, where she concentrated in housing and community development law and policy, and has been a passionate advocate for low-income people and communities, litigating numerous cases on behalf of low-income tenants, households and communities, including fair housing cases.