Fred Karnas

Fred Karnas joined St. Luke’s Health Initiatives as President and CEO in November of 2011.

He brings a long history of work on issues related to the intersection of housing, health, and human services, with a special focus on addressing the needs of vulnerable populations. At SLHI, he manages a portfolio of grant-making, policy analysis and community development work all focused on creating healthy communities.

Fred began his work life in Arizona in the early 1970s and has worked in a variety of community and faith-based housing and human service non-profits in the state, as well as working as a policy adviser for Governor Napolitano’s and serving in her cabinet as Director of the Arizona Department of Housing. He has also spent a portion of his career in Washington, DC, most recently serving in the Obama Administration as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) where he also worked closely with senior leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on issues affecting homeless persons, older Americans, and persons with disabilities. He also served at HUD in the Clinton Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary overseeing the Department’s homelessness and HIV/AIDS housing programs. During that time he also served as the acting director of the federal Interagency Council on the Homeless (a working group of the White House Domestic Policy Council).

His non-profit work has included time at the Area Agency on Aging and the Community Housing Partnership in Phoenix, as well as five years as executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, a Washington, DC based advocacy group.

He holds a Bachelor of City Planning degree from the University of Virginia School of Architecture, a master’s degree in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Ph.D. from the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech. He is a native of Adams Center, a hamlet near the Canadian border in northern New York state.