Kel Kelly (she/her) is Co-Chair of the More Homes Coalition, and a mom of four, humanitarian, empath, warrior for the underdog, refugee advocate, champion for the homeless, hospice volunteer, TEDx Talk speaker, and the Founder and President of Humanity Rises.
Dr. Jim O’Connell (he/him) is Chair of the More Homes Coalition, and the Chief Medical Officer of Boston Health Care for Homeless Program. He is the subject of Pulitzer Prize winning author Tracy Kidder’s extraordinary book “Rough Sleepers”and viewed as the “Pope for the Homeless.” Dr. Jim is frequently sought out to advise other cities about how best to help the unhoused, and he is a national spokesperson for the coalition.
Paul English (he/him) is the founder of the More Homes Coalition and Boston Venture Studio. Paul has previously co-founded and successfully sold six startups – Kayak, Lola, Moonbeam, GetHuman, Boston Light and Intermute.
Paul is also the founder of five nonprofits – Embrace Boston, Summits Education in Haiti, The Winter Walk for Homelessness, the Bipolar Social Club and the Institute for Applied AI.
Paul is the subject of Tracy Kidder’s book “A Truck Full of Money”. You can hear an interview with Paul on “How I Built This” with Guy Raz, and you can see his videos from TEDxBoston from 2022 and 2024.
Former Mayor Martin J. Walsh (he/him), a member of the More Homes Coalition Board of Directors and Boston’s 54th mayor, is a lifelong champion of working people and a proud product of the City of Boston.
Marty Walsh has spent his life fighting for working people, as a labor leader, as a public official and as a private citizen. After serving as the United States’ 29th Secretary of Labor, he was appointed as the Executive Director of the National Hockey League Players’ Association. Grateful for the role that unions played in helping his immigrant family join the middle class, he co-founded pre-apprenticeship programs that have become national models in helping people of color, women and justice-involved individuals enjoy successful construction careers as union members.
