Laura Valdéz

Laura Valdéz was born and grew up in El Paso, Texas on the U.S./Mexico border. Her social justice framework is rooted in the struggles she witnessed growing up as a daughter of Mexican immigrants and queer Xicana.

Laura brings over 20 years of leadership experience in nonprofit administration, public health, public policy, and grassroots organizing. As a human rights activist, she has led several social justice organizations including organizations working for immigrant and LGBTQ rights. As a National Urban Fellow, she earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Bernard M. Baruch College, School of Public Affairs in New York City and is a LeaderSpring Fellow alumni.

Laura believes that long-term social change in this country requires sustained commitment and leadership from those most closely impacted by pervasive inequity and injustice and is looking forward to grounding this work at Dolores Street.

Saúl Hidalgo L.

Saúl has over 25 years of nonprofit experience – most of which has taken place in the Mission. His previous experience includes being a nonprofit consultant, executive manager, therapist, program developer, and university lecturer. He previously served as the agency’s Director of Housing & Shelter Programs.

Nolia Yulan Lai

Nolia Yulan Lai has over 15 years of human resources management experience. She holds a Master’s in Public Administration and an undergraduate degree in Business Administration. She has worked in the non-profit, business, education, and health sectors in both union and non-union environments. She has extensive experience in employee relations and engagement, benefits and compensation, staff development and performance management, staff recruitment and retention, and has considerable knowledge of labor and employment law. She has demonstrated experience of her proficiency in strategic and policy-making aspects of HR as she is certified as both a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), as well as a Senior Certified Professional by The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM-SCP). As an immigrant from China, she values our organization’s mission and the many services and programming we offer the immigrant community and is excited to be grounding her work at Dolores Street.

Jazzman Parks Cardona

As a Brooklyn-native, Jazzman comes to DSCS with a diverse background in education, finance, and operations. Constantly battling with generational poverty, Jazzman has become passionate about building passive income endeavors, leadership development and legacy building. Truly a teacher at heart, she has coached individuals of all ages on the importance of financial literacy. In her role at DSCS, Jazzman hopes to advocate for a growth mindset within Dolores. In the words of Roger Crawford, “Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” With each developing project, we take small steps to unite the DSCS staff and effectively advocate for the Mission District community, despite homelessness, food insecurity and immigration challenges.

Yesenia Lacayo

Yesenia has been involved in the non-profit sector from an early age. She was a participant in the Mission Area Federal Credit Union- Youth Credit Union Program which empowered low-income youth to be financially independent and responsible with an emphasis on higher education.  She was a board member for YLI for 2 years, a program that provided grants to youth created projects, and was also a Senior Youth Advocate for Mission Dignity, where her mission was to empower youth in the Mission to finish their high school diploma and continue into higher education or vocational training. She was a shelter case manager with Dolores Street for 2 years and transitioned to the Program Manager role in the winter of 2015. She continues to grow and plans to continue advocating for the neighborhood she was born and raised in.

Manuel Piña

Manny has over 12 years of experience in Operations, mostly in private corporations. Manny holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a Masters in Logistics Management. He has a solid background in project management, systems, and processes operations. Manuel has developed a solid career in the operations field, working with large corporations such as Tesla and Amazon to name a couple. As an immigrant from Venezuela and understanding all the struggles our communities go through, Manny decided to jump out of corporate and practice something more meaningful for our society with the hope of bringing more smiles to those that need it the most.

Enrique Roldan

Enrique Roldan was promoted as Program Director of Cohen Residence in 2020. Enrique worked for 5 years as the Dolores Shelter Program Manager and additionally served, for almost 5 years, as the Casa Quezada Program Manager. Enrique is a proud San Francisco native, born and raised in the Mission District. He is passionate about the work DSCS does and believes in making a difference both on the individual level and as part of larger whole. Enrique takes pride in being able to give back to a community that helped him develop into the person he is today. He demonstrates an elevated level of customer service by interacting with tenants in a respectful manner that allows him to build relationships and and embraces his connections with staff, leading to an environment that helps the program thrive with positivity.

Jaime Torres

Jaime is a San Francisco Native raised in the Mission District by a single immigrant mother. He attended and graduated from John O’Connell High School. Since then, he started working in the non-profit field supporting people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. He has grown a passion for this work as he loves to help people and it has provided him with many opportunities for growth in his own professional life.

Simon Rodriguez

Simon is originally from Los Angeles specifically from the beautiful San Fernando Valley.

For many years, he has ben working with the Latin X community in the Tenderloin. Through his work, he heard so much talk about all the help and support DSCS has offered to the community, especially with the Day laborers Project and decided to join our team as the Associate Manager of Shelter and Housing. On his off days, Simon loves working on his classic 59 Chevy and collecting records. His goals are to leave a lasting impact in my community and those he services.

Jacqui Portillo

Jacqui Portillo has over 20 years of experience in the social service sector and family support movement. Most recently she worked for East Bay Agency for Children (EBAC) where she started and operated Oakland Unified School District’s Central Family Resource Center. She was involved in EBAC’s Trauma Transformed Program and brings a wealth of knowledge and wisdom about strategies to deliver trauma informed services and creating healing spaces for our community. She lived in the Mission District 15 years ago and is remarkably familiar with nonprofit organizations in the Mission. Jacqui was the Founder and Coordinator of Casa Corazon at Instituto Familiar de La Raza. She has a deep commitment to immigrant families and social justice work.

Alejandro Nuno

Alejandro Nuno was born in Guadalajara Jalisco, México. His parents brought him to live in the US when he was 10 years old. He grew up in Santa Monica, CA and has been residing in San Francisco since 2001. He attended the University of San Francisco and received a BA in Psychology as well as two minor degrees in Latin American Studies and Media Studies. He also completed a Master’s degree and Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology with a Multi-Cultural Emphasis at Alliant International University in San Francisco. Early on in life, he knew that his calling was to support those in need. Now at Dolores Street Community Services, he can serve and support those that experience similar challenges and have similar needs as his family did in the past. This personal experience along with his professional and educational experience is giving him the opportunity to change the lives of those that come to our organization.

Cindia Diaz

Cindia Diaz is a Program Manager for the Nuestro Bienestar Community Wellness Program. She works with a team of Health Promotors to provide wrap around services and resources related to Diabetes Management, COVID-19, and other health and recovery needs for the Latino/a/x population in San Francisco. Cindia spent several years volunteering at Clínica Martín-Baró, a clinic run by students, where her commitment for civic engagement and public health evolved. She also has a broad range of experience in managed health coverage care, community-based organizations, and non-profits. She has supported projects and programs in Tijuana and Oaxaca, Mexico, demonstrating her commitment to collective action. She is from the Mixteca people from what is presently called Oaxaca, Mexico.

Maria Rinaldi

Maria is a Latinx immigrant woman with over 17 years of experience working with the Latinx and African American populations in San Francisco. During those years, she participated as a Community Chair for the SF HIV Prevention Planning Council, organized Immigrant Pride Day, and was a co-founder of MDI (Movimiento por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes).

With a background in Education from the University of Buenos Aires, Maria has helped and supported the development of curricula on HIV prevention, Youth Violence Prevention, and Immigrant Rights. In her role as Director of Community Engagement and Organizing at DSCS, Maria oversees the Workers’ Rights, Tenants’ Rights, Health Prevention, and Immigrant Rights Coalition, Food Distribution and Workers’ Co-op Program.

Sanika Mahajan

Sanika Mahajan grew up primarily in the South Bay as the daughter of South Asian immigrants. Her commitment to centering social justice for marginalized groups is grounded in her experience as a survivor of sexual and gender-based violence, which led her to community organizing and restorative justice as a grounding framework. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Social Studies from Harvard College with a minor in Global Health and is also a certified Restorative Justice practitioner.

Sanika has five years of experience in nonprofit spaces, organizing, and political education. She has led coalition-based campaigns for national policy change in Title IX and participated in local racial justice movements and mutual aid food programs in the South Bay. She is committed to finding transformative joy in community-building in her role at Dolores Street.

Guillermina Castellanos

As co-founder of La Colectiva de Mujeres in 2001, Guillermina has supported hundreds of women to discover and develop dignity, leadership, and skills. She is a strong leader in local, regional, national, and international movements to win workplace rights for domestic workers and day laborers. She was given the honor to represent US domestic workers at the International Labor Organization in Geneva for the United Nations’ Convention on Domestic Work and helped found the National Domestic Worker’s Alliance. She is a member of the board for ENLACE, a nonprofit that supports low-wage worker centers, unions, and community organizations in Mexico and the U.S. through capacity building trainings and strategic campaigning. She is also a board member of the San Francisco branch of Jobs with Justice, an alliance of labor, community, faith-based, and student organizations that strives to build a movement for economic and social justice locally and nationally. She is deeply committed to social, political, and economic transformation because it is nourishing for her, and this is where she finds her happiness.

Sayde Leos Diaz

Sayde Leos is an accomplished Lawyer in Mexico and Paralegal in the US, with 6 years of law experience in both countries. She enjoys using her skills to contribute to the community she works with. Currently, Sayde is the Program Manager for DSCS’s new Worker Cooperative.

Melissa Gomez

Born and raised in the Mission, Melissa sees the Mission district as a huge part of her identity. When she found DSCS was hiring, she knew it was the right fit for because of the work they do around San Francisco and she wanted to be a part of that, not just a bystander.

When Melissa is not working, she likes to hike and visit farmers markets around the Bay Area. She also enjoy painting even though she believes she is terrible at it. Her goals are to educate and instill advocacy into those around who were made to believe they did not have a voice.