I am a collaborator and thought leader in the community development field, positioned at the cutting edge of policy formation, community collaboration, social justice healing, and system change to work with communities to address the national crisis of homelessness.

I approach my praxis through an historic, Afro-Feminine Indigenous lens to repair community fissures through co-creating models that advance cultures of belonging.   

I am Dr. Iya Alisa Osunfunke Orduña, a depth-psychologist researcher, community engagement facilitator, and writer dedicated to addressing the national racial reckoning and homelessness crisis through the development of community healing modalities that foster cultures of belonging. A former homelessness policy analyst and strategic advisor to local governments, public officials, social service nonprofits, and policy influencers, I understand firsthand how past public policies and social service systems have caused harm to multiple communities, leaving legacies of social division, hierarchies of power, segregation, and loss of autonomy. As an Afro-Feminine Indigenous practitioner, I have developed a modality called Osun Consciousness™ that leads communities, groups, families, and people through a facilitated process of remembering and rewriting stories to reconnect to who they truly are. In coming from a deeper place of authenticity, I believe that communities have the ability to overcome historic tensions and harm and come together to co-design programs, policies, and practices that advance towards beloved communities where all members thrive. I recognizes that this work is not easy, nor can it be rushed, so in collaboration with other practitioners and host communities, I curate brave spaces for interpersonal dialogue through incorporation of expressive arts, movement, nature, and writing to embody this facilitated practice.

I am a critical inter-disciplinary scholar-practitioner of Indigenous and Liberation psychologies and community-based participatory research practices. I invite public speaking, collaborative writing, and adjunct teaching opportunities where I can share the integration of my practitioner experience and scholarship to students and communities interested in exploring the nexus between the phenomenon of homelessness, race, and human rights.

 Summary of community development and research interests:

• Race and Homelessness in the United States

• Liberation arts and research methods

• Community service learning and participatory action research

• Afro-Diasporic and Traditional African Cosmologies

• History of Homelessness and Homelessness Policy in the United Stat

• Community Participatory Planning Processes

• Black Women and Community Development Theory

• Political Economy of the Anglophone Caribbean and Urban United States

• Black Literary Arts Tradition

• Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods: African Indigenous research methods, Phenomenology, Narrative Analysis, Critical Race Theory, Critical Arts Inquiry, and Participatory Action Research

Click here for full Curriculum Vitae:

Community Research Papers

1. Downtown Women Center - Project 100 - - a participatory action research project.