Dr. Jamie Rife is the Chief Housing Officer and Executive Director of Denver’s Department of Housing Stability. Prior to joining the City, Dr. Rife was the Executive Director at the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative (MDHI), the lead agency for the Continuum of Care in metro Denver, the organization tasked with leading collaboration efforts to end homelessness in the region. Under her leadership, Denver has become nationally recognized for its work on achieving quality data for those experiencing homelessness and reducing veteran homelessness in a large metro region. Dr. Rife was a member of the collaborative that launched the statewide Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) in 2018 throughout Colorado. Prior to joining MDHI, Dr. Rife spent nearly 15 years in public education as a teacher and district administrator, dedicated to serving marginalized students in metro Atlanta. Upon moving to Colorado in 2016, she served as the State Coordinator for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth at the Colorado Department of Education where she oversaw the state’s educational response to students experiencing homelessness. She holds bachelor’s degrees in both Spanish and Sociology from the State University of New York College at Cortland, a master’s degree from the University of Georgia in Educational Administration and Policy and a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Liberty University. Dr. Rife conducts research on poverty and homelessness and is the co-author of
the 2020 book “Journeys Out of Homelessness: The Voices of Lived Experience” which chronicles nine individuals from Colorado experiencing homelessness and elevates policy implications from theirjourneys. She regularly speaks both regionally and nationally on the issues of homelessness and housing instability.