Paul L. Freese, Jr. has worked as a public interest attorney for more than 25 years and provides consulting on holistic innovations and solutions to poverty, with special focus upon traumatized populations.   He specializes in strategic project development to achieve upstream early intervention impact.  He has devoted his career to humanizing our child welfare, health and corrections systems by applying emerging insights from neuroscience on trauma informed care promoting emerging evidence based best practices to integrate and apply such insights. His work is guided by the core principles that 1) poverty and homelessness stem from the corrosion of the ties that bind our families and communities with connective care, and 2) the most pernicious form of poverty is that which erodes our collective spirit vis-à-vis the growing empathy divide between those suffering oppressive conditions in our inner cities and detached rural areas from those living in privilege, protected and ever more gated communities.  Accordingly, he promotes ‘proximity projects’ that connect these worlds, with the specific goal of increasing the presence of caring protective adults in the lives of our most invisible and detached households and individuals through outreach, peer supports, mentoring engagements, community engagement and utilizing emerging technology to achieve this connectivity in care.

​

Paul’s career includes twenty-five years as a legal aid attorney developing programs to prevent and end homelessness and to protect and engage our most isolated and vulnerable youth – those experiencing homelessness, immigration distress, foster care and justice involved youth. Paul currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Children’s Law Center, whose attorneys represent youth in dependency proceedings;  the Advisory Board of Angel’s Nest TLP, a transformative opportunity housing nonprofit for former foster youth.