John Parvensky, President and CEO
John Parvensky has served as the President and CEO of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless since 1986. In this capacity, he has spearheaded the development of over 1,400 affordable housing units throughout the Denver Metropolitan area and directed the day-to-day activities of an organization that delivers housing, healthcare, mental healthcare, substance abuse treatment, counseling and other supportive services to more than 15,000 homeless men, women and children, each year.
Mr. Parvensky was instrumental in the creation and passage of the McKinney-Vento Act, the first federal legislation ever dedicated to homeless assistance programs. Through his guidance, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless has become a national leader in developing model healthcare programs for homeless persons, while creating a new way of providing integrated, supportive housing for homeless and at-risk families and individuals. Coalition programs such as “Housing First” for chronically homeless individuals and rapid re-housing for families with children have become a standard embraced by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other federal agencies.
In April 2009, Mr. Parvensky was elected to a two-year term as President of the Board of Directors of the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH), the nation's oldest and largest homeless advocacy organization. Mr. Parvensky is a member of Denver’s Commission to End Homelessness and Vice Chair of Colorado’s Interagency Council on Homelessness. He is a member of the National Health Care for the Homeless Board of Directors and a member of the community advisory board of JPMorgan Chase Bank. In 2002, he was awarded the prestigious Leadership for a Changing World Award from the Ford Foundation. He graduated Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.