People

People

Tia Stone

Senior Manager of Membership

Housing Story

As a child of an all Black family, I grew up watching my family struggle to make their way out of West Las Vegas, the segregated Black community, and purchase homes in affluentneighborhoods. I’ve seen firsthand the redlining still happening in today’s real estate process. Las Vegas is also the number 2 fastest growing city in the country as people flee their cities in the post-pandemic economy. Las Vegas has not met the increasing demand for housing, allowing new residents with high incomes, many of whom are cash buyers, to sweep up homes in the neighborhoods with the most resources. This has caused a massive increase in home and rent prices, making it harder for locals to afford housing. New reports show the average person now needs to work 2.5 full time jobs to afford the average rent in Las Vegas.

Bio

Tia Stone joined YIMBY Action as the Senior Manager of Membership in June 2023. Her background is in community engagement, marketing, and volunteer management. Though new to the pro-housing movement, Tia has been in the thick of equity and justice-centered work as an organizer in the Black Lives Matter movement in which she worked on protest and policy organizing and coalition building around local cases and policies upholding police brutality. She also spent years in sexual violence and human trafficking work, working as a director for a local nonprofit where she became a certified Victim Advocate heavily focused on the importance of healing-centered and trauma-informed approaches to working not only in victim advocacy but all justice and equity work.

Asile Patin

Atlanta Organizer

Housing Story

I was born and raised in Vine City, a historically Black neighborhood in Atlanta. My family and I stayed in these apartments for over 15 years, and slowly but surely, rents started to increase. Before we knew it, rent was over $2000 for a two bedroom apartment. Staying in Atlanta, let alone Vine City, was entirely out of the question financially. My family was one of many families who could only afford our basic living expenses if it meant moving outside of the Atlanta limits altogether.

Bio

Asile Patin is a strategist, facilitator, and organizer based in Atlanta, Georgia. She joined the YIMBY movement as an Atlanta Regional Organizer in 2022. Previously, Asile participated in the first study and review of Atlanta’s historic Neighborhood Planning Unit system in over 40 years. Through the study, she developed and piloted a methodology to use civic engagement to mend social and economic inequality. Asile was a 2020 Georgia Women’s Policy Institute Fellow, advocating for gender pay equity legislation. She was also an inaugural Highlander Center ‘Seeds of Fire’ grant recipient, designing and facilitating a series of intimate focus groups within Black communities to discuss the political landscape in Georgia. In addition to her organizing work with YIMBY Action, she is currently a consultant with CommunityBuild Ventures, a pro-Black solutions firm committed to promoting racial equity. Asile is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and holds a dual Bachelor of Arts Degree in African American Studies and Civic Engagement from Syracuse University.

Alex Melendrez

Equity Organizing Manager

Housing Story

I often like to say I am a child of the 2008-09 Great Recession. As a young teenager, my parents would often talk about the mortgage and how we were struggling to pay it. There was a chance we could lose our home. While it didn’t happen to me, it did happen to my friends. Fast forward to my time at UC Berkeley and I couldn’t afford to live near campus, instead commuting. I developed a friendship with someone who had resorted to sleeping under their desk and couch surfing due to housing prices.

Bio

Alex Melendrez began working in pro-housing advocacy in 2018 as an organizer for the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County. As an organizer, he advocated for housing rights for communities in San Mateo County. Alex endorsed projects and policies to improve tenants’ rights and housing affordability, and developed new housing leaders. In 2019, Alex became a Lead with Peninsula For Everyone chapter, where he encouraged YIMBYs to join local boards and commissions. Alex joined YIMBY Action as an Organizing Manager for the California Peninsula & South Bay in 2022. He grows our movement in San Mateo and Santa Clara County by empowering grassroots YIMBYs to become leaders in their own communities. Alex has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Government from the University of California, Berkeley. Alex also serves as the Communications Director for the San Mateo County Democratic Party, sits on the California Democratic Party’s Legislative Committee, and serves on his community college’s Chancellor Select committee. In the past, he has served on the Peninsula Clean Energy’s Citizens Advisory Committee, the San Bruno Parks and Recreation Commission, and the Peninsula Young Democrats’ Executive Board.

Rafa Sonnenfeld

Policy Director

Housing Story

In college, I learned my share of the rent for my room would be higher than the mortgage for my father’s home. It took me a year of checking listings every day to find an apartment in my price range: a moldy converted basement with an illegal kitchen that had dozens of interested renters: I called it home for six years, always worrying I’d have to leave my hometown. Despite being eligible for 10 years, my local housing authority couldn’t even add me to the rental assistance waitlist.

Bio

Rafa Sonnenfeld has been working in the housing sector since 2019, when he began serving on the City of Santa Cruz’s Community Advisory Committee on Homelessness. Rafa has experience working with local government and non-profit organizations that provide support for vulnerable populations experiencing the consequences of the national housing crisis. As Policy Director, Rafa uses his depth of housing policy knowledge to lead the strategic deployment of the YIMBY Action network to advance pro-housing policy. He focuses on policy prioritization, staff and volunteer management, coalition building and thought leadership, and legal team support. Rafa received his Bachelor of Science in Informatics from the University of Washington. Rafa also serves on the board of Recovery Cafe Santa Cruz, a non-profit that serves people suffering from homelessness, addiction, and other mental health challenges, and has served as a member of Housing for Health Partnership, and Housing Santa Cruz County.