Lisa Watson

CEO – Downtown Women’s Center, Los Angeles

BIO

Lisa Watson is chief executive officer at the Downtown Women’s Center, which provides supportive services and permanent housing to homeless women living in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, a city with the largest number of homeless women in the country.

Prior to working with the DWC, Ms. Watson was assistant executive director of the YWCA of Glendale, where she founded the Women’s Drop-in Center for Spanish and Armenian-speaking women to find job training, childcare, and domestic violence services.

She serves on the board of directors for the John Wesley County Hospital Institute and is working toward the creation of a mental health program geared specifically toward homelss and low-income women, housed at the DWC.