PROGRAM STAFF

Jason Small

Policy Director

Catherine Bendor

Legal Director

Tulin Ozdeger

Tulin Ozdeger coordinates the Civil Rights Project at the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP). Tulin works with advocates to challenge city practices that criminalize homelessness. She serves as co-counsel in litigation, files amicus briefs, and serves as a resource for attorneys pursuing litigation. Tulin also writes reports, articles, and other publications to provide legal guidance and information about the civil rights issues of homeless people.

In addition, she monitors civil rights issues throughout the country and provides technical assistance to advocates who are combating criminalization measures or working on voting issues. As part of the Civil Rights Program's public education initiative, Tulin provides trainings related to strategies for challenging the criminalization of homelessness and promoting the voting rights of homeless persons.

Tulin received her B.S. from Northwestern University and her J.D. from George Washington University Law School. Before joining NLCHP, Tulin worked as a staff attorney on complex litigation matters at Arnold & Porter. Her work at Arnold & Porter also included a substantial pro bono practice.

Eric Tars

Eric Tars currently serves as the Human Rights Program Director and Children & Youth Staff Attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.  In his human rights capacity, he works with homeless and housing advocacy organizations to train and strategically utilize human rights as a component of their work.  In his youth rights capacity, he works to protect homeless students' rights to education and advocates for homeless youth and families through trainings, litigation, and policy advocacy at the national and local levels.

Before coming to the Law Center, Eric was a Fellow with Global Rights' US Racial Discrimination Program, and consulted with Columbia University Law School's Human Rights Institute and the US Human Rights Network. Eric's work has spanned the country and the globe.  He coordinated the involvement of hundreds of organizations in the hearings of the US before the UN Committee Against Torture and Human Rights Committee in 2006.  Eric has conducted numerous trainings on integrating human rights strategies into domestic advocacy, and he currently serves as the Chair of the Training Committee of the US Human Rights Network and on the CERD Advisory Task Force of the Network.

Eric received his JD as a Global Law Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, and during that time served as a Research Assistant to Prof. Mari Matsuda, as a Legal Assistant at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and as Law Clerk at Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, a law firm specializing in non-profit law.  He received his BA in Political Science from Haverford College and studied international human rights in Vienna, Austria at the Institute for European Studies and at the University of Vienna.

Rachel Natelson

Domestic Violence Attorney