2025 Friendship Place Gala

Friendship Place Honors recognizes outstanding contributions by members of our community to the cause of ending homelessness. Enjoy great music, hors d’oeuvres, and refreshments while celebrating the remarkable and selfless work of this year’s honorees.

We hope you will join us for what will be an impactful evening!

Justin Wilson

With a commitment to ensuring every child’s opportunity at success, protecting Alexandria’s long-term fiscal health and investing in the infrastructure that improves our quality of life, Justin Wilson served two terms as the Mayor of the City of Alexandria, Virginia. Wilson was first elected in November 2018 and re-elected in November 2021.

While Justin’s tenure as Mayor spanned the deeply challenging COVID pandemic and the 2019 Metro shutdown, his leadership led to significant success including:

Redevelopment of the long-shuttered Landmark Mall
Construction and opening of the Potomac Yard Metro
Construction and opening of the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus
The most significant era of new school construction in the City’s history
Record investments in basic infrastructure, including combined sewer tunnels, stormwater capacity and flooding mitigation
Large expansions in bus ridership, including the elimination of fares
Thousands of units of committed affordable housing constructed
Zoning reform to improve housing creation and accessibility
Expanded African-American history programs, including Freedom House Museum, the African-American History Trail and the Community Remembrance Project
New indoor pool, new parks, playing fields and open-space
Large increases in Fire Department staffing to improve capabilities and capacity
Expanded early childhood education for low-income children
Negotiation and approval of the first two public-sector collective bargaining agreements in Virginia in 45 years, with Alexandria’s Police Department and Fire Department

As Mayor, Justin represented the City regionally on the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Board of Directors. Within the City, Justin led the City-Schools Subcommittee, the ARHA Redevelopment Committee, the Health & Safety Coordinating Committee, the Legislative Subcommittee, the Audit Committee, the Employee Pension/Compensation Committee, the Potomac Yard Metro Implementation Advisory Group and the Combined Sewer Outfall Project Review Team Workgroup.

An experienced community leader, Justin previously served 8 years on the City Council prior to his election as Mayor, including service from 2016 – 2019 as Alexandria’s Vice Mayor.

Prior to his election to the City Council, Justin served as the Chair of the Alexandria Transit Company Board of Directors, which operates the City’s DASH bus service, and served on the Budget & Fiscal Affairs Advisory Committee. He was twice elected president of the Del Ray Citizens Association and he chaired the City’s effort to promote participation in the 2010 decennial Census. He represented Alexandria on the Board of Directors of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority—preserving and managing 11,000 acres of open space and 24 regional parks.

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems from Virginia Commonwealth University, and is a Fellow of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia.

He was an appointee of Governor Mark Warner to the state’s Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice and later to the Board of Juvenile Justice—a position he was reappointed to by Governor Tim Kaine.

Justin is employed by the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) as a Senior Director.

An avid runner, Justin has completed ten marathons, and he lives in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria with his wife, Alex, a life-long Alexandrian, and their son, Eli and daughter Lena.

Laura

Laura Green Zeilinger served as Director of the District of Columbia Department of Human Services (DHS) from 2015-2025, where she guided 1,500 personnel and a $933 million budget while providing support to over 275,000 District residents. A collaborative leader focused on cross-systems solutions, she achieved remarkable results including a 78% reduction in family homelessness between 2016 and 2021 and effectively ending chronic family homelessness in 2022. Her innovative work included designing “Career MAP” with the Federal Reserve, a groundbreaking pilot program that addressed benefit cliffs and opened pathways to economic security for 600 families with histories of homelessness. She led the broad implementation of housing first for people experiencing chronic homelessness in DC.

Prior to her DHS role, Laura served as Executive Director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), where she implemented “Opening Doors,” the Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. Laura spent her early career working on international development projects in the Central Asian Republics.

Laura is currently serving as Interim Senior Vice President for Community Impact and Resident Services at Enterprise Community Partners. Laura holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the Washington College of Law at American University.

EZ Street

EZ Street is the CEO and Founder of Creative Solutions for Youth LLC & Academy DC, is a television and radio personality with over 35 years of radio & music industry experience.

EZ Street is currently employed as a radio personality at 96.3 WHUR in Washington, DC. He also appears as a Sports Analyst for the Washington Commanders games on TV weekly for FOX 5 DC and was the Official DJ for NBC Sports Washington, covering the Washington Wizards.

Through a federally funded contract with CSOSA, EZ Street also created and specially designed The Academy DC to help reduce gun violence and recidivism and to increase public safety in the Washington DC area.

EZ has and continues to be heavily involved with mentoring, motivational speaking and volunteer work in the Washington, DC community. His mentoring, motivational speaking and volunteer work has extended to hundreds of local artists, schools, community centers and non-profit organizations addressing issues like peer pressure, the importance of education, goal setting, college readiness, HIV and AIDS awareness, homelessness, domestic violence, etc. EZ was the first to produce “DMV Artist Showcases” that invited artists to the radio station for an interview, played their songs on the air and hosted live performance venues across the DMV area to showcase their talent to the community.

EZ Street created, produces and hosts The Street Report television program which airs on the Washington, DC based DCN created by Mayor Bowser (OCTFME).

EZ is a proud United States Marine Corps Veteran and a proud parent of three. His youngest daughter, known as “DJ Little Bacon Bear” hosts evenings at 93.9 WKYS here in Washington, DC with ratings showing she has and continues to be #1 in her time slot. She was taught and trained by her father with the same knowledge, wisdom and expertise that has been documented in The Academy DC curriculum.

Over the last 30 years in the Washington DC area EZ Street has appeared at and given hundreds of motivational speeches to youth and juveniles.

August 17 2017, EZ Street hosted Mayor Bowser’s My Brothers Keeper Mentorship Volunteer Fair for Serve DC at the National Press Club and is also the recipient of the President Joe Biden & Vice President Kamala Harris Lifetime Achievement Award for Community Service in 2024.

To purchase tickets online, visit: https://onecau.se/fpgala.

For additional questions, please reach out to Chris Koerner at ckoerner@friendshipplace.org or 202-290-4435.

Justin Wilson

Laura

EZ Street

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