Kya currently serves as the Urban Policy Justice Associate for Just Cities. She is from Los Angeles, where she was introduced to the movement of resisting mass displacement and gentrification because of her family’s and community’s own experiences with increasing housing unaffordability and environmental racism.
Kya has organized with groups like Los Angeles Tenants Union and Oakland/SF-based Causa Justa for tenant justice and transformative housing policies that combat displacement, and with her community for the shutting down of a gas storage facility that threatens the health of local residents. She also organizes with Dissenters Org against racist militarism and carceral surveillance in our communities. At Just Cities, Kya provides research and policy writing support on the Richmond Housing Equity Roadmap and the Alameda County Re-entry Housing Plan.
Kya received her BA in Urban Studies from UC Berkeley.