Michael Nailat

Michael Nailat is an Associate Director in the Equity in Community Investments team. He comes to Catalyst California with nearly 15 years of experience in the homelessness and housing sector, including over a decade at the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, where he led efforts on impact data, research, and operational infrastructure. A genuine believer in data as an essential component of community empowerment and action, he developed public dashboards and maps on homelessness, fostered community-centered data leadership throughout LA County, and co-founded the Homelessness Policy Research Institute in partnership with the USC Price Center for Social Innovation and the California Policy Lab.

A former long-time resident of Historic Filipinotown, Michael has supported many organizing efforts in the Filipino American community, addressing gentrification, advocating for immigrant rights, and co-leading the Justice for Filipino American Veterans campaign.  He also produces and co-hosts This Filipino American Life, a podcast that explores the nuanced experiences of Filipinos in the United States, fixes computers for the Pilipino Workers Center, and occasionally DJs for the Tuesday Night Project in Little Tokyo.  In between and often during all of that, he is also an amateur photographer.

A Southern Californian though and through, he was born and raised in Oxnard, earned bachelors degrees in Asian American Studies and Social Science at the University of California, Irvine, and received his Masters in Public Policy at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy.  He currently lives in the San Fernando Valley with his wife Elaine and their elderly pitbull Teddy.