Michele Steeb Bio

Michele is a frontline homelessness and corrections leader who has spent more than two decades transforming broken systems into pathways of human restoration.

As CEO of Northern California’s largest program for homeless women and children, she led 13 years of direct, on-the-ground work addressing addiction, trauma, and mental illness— experience that now anchors her national policy leadership.

Founder of the Free Up Foundation and author of Answers Behind the RED DOOR, Michele is a nationally recognized voice challenging the failures of Housing First— as a one-size-fits-all approach to homelessness— and advancing models built on rehabilitation, accountability, and safety. She advises communities and policymakers across the country, helping leaders build place-based strategies that produce lasting independence.

Her insights have been featured on major platforms—from The Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil to USA Today, The Washington Post, FoxNews.com, Newsweek, and others—and she brings rare credibility as both a practitioner and a reformer. Appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the California Prison Industry Authority, she helped extend her successful transitional model to women exiting prison.

Appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the California Prison Industry Authority, she was later asked by the Department of Corrections—recognizing the success of her model—to adapt and expand it for women preparing for reentry.

Michele’s work is rooted in a simple conviction: true compassion restores people. She has spent her career fighting for approaches that move individuals from crisis to stability to purpose and for communities to replace failed models with proven models that heal, empower, and transform lives.