Debra Susie

Debra A. Susie serves as a Project Specialist at NCCEH.  She coordinates the monthly, NC Local Leadership Response Sharing calls and oversees the Housing Connections Initiative to pilot innovations for securing landlord/owner engagement in the provision of housing for those experiencing homelessness. Prior to her December 2019 arrival at NCCEH, Debra worked as the Disaster Housing Recovery Coordinator under a one-year contract with the National Low Income Housing Coalition in Washington. For 30 years prior, she served as the President/CEO of Florida Impact, a public policy nonprofit that mobilized communities around policies to increase access to federal food, nutrition, and other economic-support programs. Debra is the author of In the Way of Our Grandmothers and produced a documentary by the same title. This oral history features midwives, their descendants, and the women they served as the medical profession systematically destroyed the practice. It was awarded the 1988 outstanding Florida history book by the Florida Historical Society. Debra has a doctorate of humanities and a master’s degree in religious thought from Florida State University. Debra grew up in Miami, where her father played a pivotal role in bringing the Teamsters to south Florida’s largest book and magazine wholesaler. Her mother was an untrained yet highly effective community organizer who coordinated a milk boycott that led to price-fixing indictments for several Florida dairies in the 1960s.