The Human Touch
Homeless advocate Amber Sheikh promotes systemic change along with personal attention.
Amber Sheikh's awareness of poverty came early in life. As a child, she frequently visited England and Pakistan—her parents’ homelands. “It was so formative to see different countries and cultures, and especially to witness widespread poverty at a young age,” she says.
Sheikh engaged in local charitable activities in high school and college, where she majored in international relations. Planning to pursue philanthropic work abroad, she completed a UN fellowship and research project in India focusing on microfinancing. She realized she didn’t need to go overseas to find pressing needs and found work on Los Angeles’ Skid Row at the Downtown Women’s Center.
Today Sheikh focuses on societal improvement through her professional and volunteer activities. She is chief impact officer and owner of Sheikh/Impact, a consulting firm providing fundraising, organizational development and communications assistance to nonprofits. In 2021 Sheikh acquired and took over the firm, formerly Thurlow/Associates, after serving for 10 years on staff.
“We’ve helped lots of organizations grow,” she says. “For example, six years ago we started working with a justice reform organization with a budget of a few hundred thousand dollars. It’s now an over $3 million organization with a nationwide reach.”
The firm has guided capital campaigns leading to the construction of a community clinic and hospital wing, among other achievements.
On the volunteer front, Sheikh was appointed to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Commission in April—an agency that oversees both city and county homeless services. She’s no stranger to this work; in 2017 she helped build and lead L.A.’s first council district working group on homelessness.
“We’re trying to solve an issue that took decades to create,” she says. “Over the last five years, we’ve housed and served more folks than ever, but the need is like a fire hose. If no one else fell into homelessness in our region, we would solve the issue in three years. We just can’t work fast enough to keep up with demand.”
Sheikh believes solving homelessness will improve other societal challenges, including income inequality, poor mental health, substance use, racism and domestic violence. In addition to her county-wide advocacy, she personally helps several women who have been homeless to obtain services.
She also serves in a volunteer capacity as the governing council chair of Maternal Mental Health NOW. The agency promotes prevention, identification and treatment of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.
“I see mental health and maternal mental health in particular as a large contributor to homelessness,” says Sheikh, who suffered from undiagnosed panic disorder during her pregnancy and has addressed the California State Assembly in support of a bill requiring mental health screening during pregnancy.
She often speaks to groups—from faith-based organizations to classrooms—about homelessness. “It’s my favorite part of advocacy. I love connecting with humans about this,” Sheikh says. Indeed, she believes personal connection is critical to solving the issue.
“The 60,000 homeless individuals in our county have 60,000 stories and solutions. Effective solutions require both best practices and individual human approaches,” she says. “One of the biggest solutions is caring about the people beyond your household and how that would change the way you interact with the world around you.”
Despite the challenges of solving homelessness, Sheikh believes it is possible. “We may not see zero homelessness, but we’ll get to a day when, if someone falls into homelessness, we have the services and systems in place to quickly help them back out. Homelessness will become a temporary state rather than an identity or a demographic.”
