Erika Cervantes (she/ella) serves as the Senior Policy and Advocacy Manager at Alliance for a Better Community.

She is responsible for advancing ABC’s education policy and advocacy initiatives inclusive of its efforts to increase access to high-quality schools, improve college access and success, and increase the civic participation of Latinas/os in Los Angeles. Erika works to strengthen coalition-building efforts, work with elected officials to raise awareness on key issues impacting the Los Angeles Latina/o community and coordinates the development of research briefs on priority topics.

Previously, Erika served as a registered lobbyist in California working on state policy issues related to housing and homelessness for the national organization, Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH). While there, she helped advance state-level policies towards solving homelessness by co-leading lobbying and advocacy efforts for state bills on topics of homelessness, reentry and justice-impacted populations, workforce capacity and development, older adults, people with disabilities, and the intersection of Medi-Cal services with supportive housing developments. She worked to pass a dedicated revenue source for housing and services in California, lobbied to create supportive housing for people exiting prisons, and to align Medicaid programs funding personal care services with state funding for housing. Erika is a firm believer in the need to include community members in the public policy process and worked to create the first State Policy Advisory Committee made up of lived-experience experts of homelessness at CSH.

Additionally, Erika has experience working with both city and county governments as well as nonprofits in Southern California. She comes to ABC with a background working on issues including workforce development, economic development, civic engagement, and environmental sustainability. She also spent much of her time during graduate school assisting in the implementation of diversity and inclusion-related recruitment programs for prospective graduate level students with a particular focus on BIPOC and first-generation students. Erika is passionate about social justice and grassroot movements, data-driven and evidence-based policy, and the advancement of public-private partnerships.

Erika is a Southern California native and a first-generation college graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Urban Planning from UC Irvine and a Masters in Public Policy from UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.