COHA Board

Melissa Blackett currently serves as the Community Center Coordinator at Westside Church and Community Center as well as serving on the COHA Board and the Mountain View Community Development Board. She brings a wealth of experience in community development and connection to our team. Melissa’s passion for serving and helping our homeless neighbors find safety, support, and community stems from her time spent in London working with the homeless, the long-term unemployed, and mentally ill in London, and from her over 20 years of living in and developing community in Central Oregon. When not volunteering, Melissa can be found crafting, creating art, playing board games, traveling, and exploring our beautiful Central Oregon trails with her husband and two boys.

Barbara Belzer has been involved in volunteer activities for people who are experiencing homelessness for over 6 years.  Her most recent involvement has been through the UUFCO Homeless Outreach Project as the Co-chair.  Although currently retired, her professional experience was as a Clinical Social Worker focusing on young children, family support and prevention of abuse and neglect.  She has lived in Bend, OR for over 20 years and enjoys the hiking, kayaking and beauty that Central Oregon has to offer. 

Ginny McKee began working on homelessness in her 20s when she helped start a food pantry and family shelter in Cincinnati, Ohio. From that, a passion to work on homelessness was born. While she has a professional background in I.T., she has always felt called to use her project management skills to work on homelessness. This includes managing the opening of a day shelter at First Unitarian in Portland, serving as co-chair of the Homeless Outreach Project at UUFCO, and helping establish the Central Oregon Homelessness Alliance. She volunteers frequently at Family Kitchen and Shepherd’s House

Ginny moved with her husband to Bend in 2019 and enjoys hiking, spending time with family, and attending events at the Tower Theater.

Lynd has lived in Oregon all his life. After Lynd retired from Xerox he and his wife Anne moved to Bend. He is active in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Homeless Outreach Project, has volunteered with Shepherd’s House Ministries for several years, and is currently on the board of COHA. Lynd enjoys bicycling, hiking, skiing, flying drones, and anything that gets him out into the mountains, the woods, or desert.

Chuck Hemingway is a retired military officer and retired attorney who has been engaged in efforts to assist unhoused persons and vulnerable populations in Central Oregon for the past quarter century as a counselor, addictions professional and volunteer.  Chuck is currently co-facilitator of the Open Door Ministries Program at Bend Church, which includes a program where those with no fixed address can get their mail.  Chuck also serves on the board of Central Oregon Villages, which he helped found.

Michelle was born in San Pablo CA and moved with her family as a young child to Westport, OR, where she graduated from Clatskanie HS, relocating as an adult to Washington State before coming to Bend more than 10 years ago. Michelle initially lived with other campers on Second Street until it was swept by the City of Bend, then moved to Hunnell Road where she lived for several years until the city swept Hunnell Road encampment too, then moving to Juniper Ridge where she currently lives her partner, Jason, two dogs (Precious and Kitten).  Michelle has been a community activist, speaking before the Bend City Council and attending county commission meetings and was a party to a lawsuit that sought to make the Hunnell closure an orderly, phased closure, rather than the all-at-once closure that happened.  In Juniper Ridge Michelle has continued to be a leader among the unhoused residents there.  Michelle stresses that the community of unhoused residents living at Juniper Ridge are people like everyone else and strives to see that they are treated humanely despite their unhoused circumstances.