2026 Keynote Session

Senator Christopher Cabaldon
District 3, California

Christopher Cabaldon was elected to the California State Senate in 2024, representing the people of Wine Country, the Delta, the North Bay, and the Sacramento Valley. Before his election to the Senate, he served two decades as Mayor of West Sacramento in Yolo County. One of the state’s first ProHousing cities and top producers of affordable housing, West Sacramento under Cabaldon’s leadership led the nation on innovations in personal mobility and next-gen transit, urban farms, flood protection, and urban revitalization.

An appointed education and environment official for five governors of both political parties, Senator Cabaldon represented California on the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education prior to his election to the Senate.

As chair of the Sacramento region’s metropolitan planning organization and its transportation committee, his pioneering work on integrating transportation, land use, environmental justice, housing, air quality, and climate change won numerous national awards, and became the basis for some of California’s most sweeping transportation and climate reforms of the past two decades. He served on the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board and the state Delta Protection Commission.

Supervisor Myrna Melgar
District 7, San Francisco

Myrna Melgar was elected to the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco representing District 7 in 2020 and reelected in 2024. She is the Chair of the Land Use and Transportation Committee, the SF County Transportation Authority, and the Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Authority. She represents San Francisco on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and serves as the Vice-Chair on its Programming and Allocations Committee.

A dedicated public servant, Myrna has served as President of the San Francisco Planning Commission, Vice President of the Building Inspection Commission, President of the Building Inspection Commission’s Board of Appeals, and member of the Francisco Asthma Task Force’s Environmental Committee. She has also served on the Board of Directors of Dolores Street Community Services, Mission Economic Development Agency, Instituto Familiar de la Raza and, most recently, the Jewish Community Relations Council. Myrna is also one of the co-founders of HomeownershipSF, a nonprofit agency supporting homeownership access and opportunities for low- and moderate-income San
Franciscans.

Myrna attended San Francisco State University, graduated from Excelsior College and Columbia University where she obtained a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning with a concentration in housing development.

Secretary Tomiquia Moss
California Housing and Homelessness Agency

Tomiquia Moss is the Secretary of California’s Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. As Secretary, she oversees a dozen State entities responsible for the preservation and expansion of safe, affordable housing, efforts to prevent and end homelessness, protect consumers, and safeguard Californians’ civil rights.

Secretary Moss has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the nonprofit and public sectors. Before her appointment, she founded and led All Home, a Bay Area organization advancing regional solutions to disrupt the cycles that perpetuate homelessness and poverty. She was also the CEO of Hamilton Families, served directly under the mayors of both San Francisco and Oakland, and was the Executive Director of the HOPE SF Initiative.

Abdi Soltani
Executive Director, ACLU of Northern California

Abdi Soltani has served as the executive director of the ACLU of Northern California since 2009. During his tenure, he has pursued long-term priorities to deepen the ACLU’s presence in the California Central Valley and elevate the ACLU’s voice on state policy at the California state capitol.

Beginning in the mid 1990’s, the central arc of Abdi’s career as a civil rights advocate has been the transformation of California from a state that led attacks on civil rights to a state that is at the forefront of advancing equality. In college, Abdi co-founded Youth United for Community Action to engage youth of color on environmental justice issues in California. He then served for almost a decade as an organizer for, and then executive director of, Californians for Justice, fighting the regressive ballot measures of that era and leading youth organizing on education equity.

As an Iranian-American, Abdi is a champion of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, educating the public about its origins in the movement to abolish slavery and its impacts for equality and freedom for all of us. His hobbies include reading about American history and enjoying the pastries, pizza slices, and hiking trails of Northern California.

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks
District 14, California

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks represents the East Bay in the California State Assembly, with a district spanning the communities of Oakland to Richmond, and includes the Cities of Berkeley, El Cerrito, and others.

Asm. Wicks is Chair of the Appropriations Committee, after serving as Chair of the Assembly Housing Committee for two years prior. She has a track record of taking on the toughest fights to solve our state’s housing crisis. In addition to this work, she focuses heavily on protecting our social safety net, keeping kids safe in the digital world, and championing the rights of women and working families. A lifelong organizer, Asm. Wicks previously served for President Barack Obama for six years. She lives in Oakland with her husband, Peter, and daughters, Jojo and Elly.

Ray Bramson
Chief Operating Officer, Destination: Home

As Chief Operating Officer at Destination: Home, Ray works systematically to meet Destination: Home’s goals by addressing key staffing, process, and infrastructure issues, while also overseeing the organization’s housing loan portfolio, grantmaking, communications, and development functions. Having focused on homelessness and affordable housing issues for the majority of his career, Ray previously worked for the City of San Jose, leading the city’s Homelessness Interventions and Solutions Division in the Housing Department.

Prior to joining the city, he was a philanthropy manager at Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and before that Ray worked with HomeFirst–a Santa Clara County safety net organization–as Director of Development. An alumnus of UC Santa Barbara, Ray spent the year following his graduation with the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps serving impoverished communities throughout the southeastern United States. He is a senior fellow with American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley and a board member for Housing Matters and Veggielution. Ray is also currently pursuing his Masters in Liberal Arts from Stanford University.

Noni Ramos
Chief Executive Officer, Housing Trust Silicon Valley

Noni Ramos is Chief Executive Officer of Housing Trust Silicon Valley, a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) working across the 14-county greater Bay Area. As the principal executive of the organization, Noni provides strategic leadership, oversees all day-to-day operations, and serves as the company’s primary spokesperson. Her impressive background spans over three decades working in the affordable housing field. She is driven to do this work because she knows first-hand how affordable housing can change the trajectory of one’s life and that if each of us decides to make a difference, together there is nothing we can’t accomplish.
Prior to joining Housing Trust, Noni was Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Enterprise Community Loan Fund, where she oversaw the lending, credit and risk management, finance, and administration functions.

She currently serves as board chair of the California Coalition for Community Investment, a coalition of cross sector CDFIs working in California, and Mercy Community Capital. She is also a board member of the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, NPH Action Fund, Community HousingWorks, and Community Health Center Capital Fund.

Noni received a Bachelor’s degree from the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and earned a Master’s in Public Administration from the California State University, East Bay.