Micah Posner – Founder of People’s Housing
Micah Posner is a dedicated community advocate, urban planner, and housing innovator based in Santa Cruz, California. With a long history of activism in affordable housing, sustainable transportation, and community development, he founded People’s Housing to pioneer a new model for building small-scale, community-driven affordable housing without reliance on government subsidies.
A former Santa Cruz City Councilmember, Micah has spent decades working on policies and projects that promote livable communities, social equity, and environmental sustainability. His work has focused on helping churches and mission-driven landowners transform underutilized land into affordable housing solutions that benefit low-income residents and unhoused individuals.
Micah’s leadership on the St. John’s House project showcases his innovative approach—partnering with faith-based organizations, private investors, and local nonprofits to develop housing that is financially self-sustaining, rapidly deployable, and community-oriented.
Passionate about grassroots solutions to the housing crisis, Micah continues to advocate for policy reforms, alternative funding models, and sustainable urban development that make affordable housing more accessible for all.
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Sibley Simon - Advisor - President New Way Homes
Sibley is a social entrepreneur, a co-founder of the 180/2020 Initiative to end veteran and chronic homelessness in Santa Cruz County, and a former award-winning technology innovator. As President of New Way Homes and Managing Director of Envision Housing, he works to help address our region’s housing crisis by developing new workforce and affordable housing without government construction subsidy.
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Mikey Cohen— President, People’s Housing
Mikey is an experienced leader in technology, nonprofit governance, and community building. He currently serves on the board of Bike Santa Cruz County, focusing on operations, membership, and various programs, and has been a board member of Chadeish Yameinu, a Jewish Renewal synagogue, for the past seven years, where he supports synagogue operations, technology, and community peace initiatives.
Professionally, Mikey has led major engineering efforts at organizations like GISAID, a global health nonprofit vital to COVID-19 genomic research, and co-founded the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), using big data and machine learning to analyze online extremism, and previously spent nearly 15 years at Netflix, as an engineering leader pioneering cloud computing, systems, and API architecture that was essential in scaling Netflix to becoming the dominant global streaming service.
Beyond his work in housing, technology, and advocacy, Mikey is a dedicated father, foster parent, musician, and outdoor enthusiast. His diverse experience in innovation, leadership, and community engagement helps guide People’s Housing toward creating sustainable, community-driven affordable housing solutions.
