LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Louisville Metro Government on Monday announced the appointment of Dr. Susan Buchino to serve as the city’s new Homeless Services Director.

Buchino will coordinate the city’s homeless initiatives to help ensure a seamless approach and response, according to a Louisville Metro press release.

She'll begin her new duties immediately, working alongside Tameka Laird, director of the Office of Resilience and Community Services (RCS).

"I’m so excited to have Dr. Buchino join our RCS team,” Laird said in a statement. “Susan has vast experience dealing with a range of issues involving homelessness throughout Louisville. Through her positions with UofL and its Commonwealth Institute of Kentucky (CIK), her research and evaluation have been a guiding force in our city’s strategies to combat homelessness."

In her new position, Buchino will help with strategizing and advocating for resources to combat homelessness; providing planning, evaluation and other expertise in the areas of the city’s Homelessness Taskforce, the Homeless Initiative Recipient Model, and homeless encampments.

Homelessness and affordable housing have been targeted as some of the top priorities for spending the city’s $388 million allotment of federal American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding. Recent initiatives include:

• In 2018, Metro Council members enacted an ordinance requiring a 21-day notice for camp removal.
• In 2019, a University of Louisville report identified solutions for reducing street homelessness.                 
• In July 2021, city leaders announced a multi-pronged approach to transition residents who are unsheltered from the streets to sustainable housing.
• In August 2021, Louisville Metro Government announced an agreement to purchase property at 212 E. College St. to provide unsheltered residents a safe, outdoor space to live temporarily, secure their belongings and access supportive wrap-around services. 
• In early 2021, RCS established the Homeless Services Division (HSD) to coordinate the city’s homelessness efforts including communications, outreach, partner engagement and strategic planning

Buchino will maintain a joint appointment at UofL as Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health and Information Sciences. Since 2019, Buchino has been a consultant for Louisville Metro providing research and programmatic evaluation on multiple homeless initiatives.

“I am honored and excited to join the Homeless Services Division as we work to implement best practices and ensure that our neighbors have access to the resources they need to find and maintain housing," Buchino said in a statement. “Houselessness undermines anyone’s ability to feel safe or address any other issue they’re facing, and this division is an important part of RCS’s mission to fight poverty and promote compassion, stability, and the empowerment of residents and communities.”

Recently, she was the research study lead on the 2019 report, “Solving Street Homelessness in Louisville, KY: Improving the Climate of Care for Individuals Experiencing Homelessness,” released by UofL’s CIK and Cooperative Consortium for Transdisciplinary Social Justice Research (CCTSJR). Read the full report here.

Buchino earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of Notre Dame, a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from Spalding University, and a PhD in Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the UofL School of Public Health and Information Sciences.