Our Vision
Healers Without Borders is working directly in the homeless encampments of the Bay Area. We are people with a heart for the community. We provide some of the essential items that anyone needs to survive. We try to bring hope to those who have lost hope, compassion to those who are struggling, and basic necessities while focusing on connecting and supporting people as they grow beyond their current life challenges.
Get Involved volunteer@healerswithoutborders.us
Our Mission
Healers Without Borders was formed by a group of people who have personally experienced and overcome their own traumas and are united under a set of common goals. We reach out to unhoused marginalized individuals bridging the gap to resources. We are facilitating change for individuals through compassionate relationship building and connection to community.
Who We Are
Brad Reiss
President
Brad, the president of Healers Without Borders, was born and raised in San Francisco. He enjoys all that San Francisco has to offer, such as organic food, swimming in the bay, running and spending time with his mom.
The people of San Francisco have always weighed on Brad‘s heart. His past experiences have prepared him to be an active advocate. In prior roles, Brad worked with detainees to reenter society, granting many the ability to rejoin society with their educational and material needs met, and with the societal support necessary to flourish. Brad‘s desire is to focus on how he can be part of the solution for this community he loves.
The ongoing social epidemic that the city is experiencing is a burden Brad feels compelled to help lift. He firmly believes Healers Without Borders can bridge this ever-widening gap. Brad wants to support the vulnerable finding the help they need through meeting people where they are and introducing a post-traumatic growth environment designed to meet emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. Brad knows healing can happen.
Brad believes that the miracle of change happens when people are willing to do something different.
Jason Wong
Vice-President
Jason is the vice-president of Healers Without Borders. A first-generation San Franciscan born to immigrant parents, Jason grew up in Chinatown and spent time in the Tenderloin. From early on, Jason saw traumatic experiences treated as a normal part of life. This includes homelessness and poverty being a part of the everyday. Over the past 10 years, Jason has been in recovery for addictions stemming from these early experiences.
What Jason experienced gave him a heart of compassion for those neglected by society. Jason desires to connect people with the type of resources he wishes had been available to him. It is his belief that if he could have accessed a group like Healers Without Borders, his PTSD would have been diagnosed earlier. When not focused on Healers Without Borders, Jason continues his work in the automotive collision industry, where he started his first business at the age of 19, and real estate development.
Vickie Matos
Treasurer
Vickie is a lifelong resident of Daly City. With a background in business administration and accounting, Vickie has worked to provide essential accounting, finance, and technical support to Fortune 500 companies such as Charles Schwab & Co and Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. Since 2010, Vickie has worked for her local community church, Good News Fellowship. As Office Manager, Vickie efficiently supports the nonprofit’s mission by managing all office and accounting functions. As Treasurer of Healers Without Borders, Vickie provides bookkeeping services and financial reporting for the organization.
Phyllis Pettus
Strategic Planner
Phyllis was born and raised in San Francisco where she has spent the majority of her life and career as an advocate of social justice. She has worked as a nurse, a counselor, and a social worker, with both personal and professional experience in the area of recovery.
Phyllis has a Master’s Degree in Social Work (San Francisco State University), and currently works for the City and County of San Francisco as a supervisor in the department of older and dependent adults. She also worked with CCSF-HSA on their Government Alliance for Race Equity to develop policy to address racial inequity. For several years, Phyllis has also worked with marginalized and oppressed groups to reduce the impact of trauma individuals suffer.
Both as a supervisor and investigator of allegations of abuse, and/or self-neglect, she saw the worst of society. This has given her invaluable experience providing intensive case management and a heart for those at risk. Phyllis also enjoys traveling and spending time with family.
Kirsten Naumann Murtagh
Director, Special Initiatives
Kirsten is a first generation, native San Franciscan. She grew up in San Francisco’s Sunset District. Today, Kirsten is a client services and project management professional, with experience across the healthcare data analytics and information technology industry. She has worked with varied clientele such as state and federal government healthcare agencies, academia, large employers, and health plans. She has strong analytic skills and hands-on experience working with healthcare data. She has co-authored and authored studies published in peer-reviewed journals. Kirsten has background in business development and proposal management (certified by Association of Proposal Management Professionals). She holds a Master’s degree in Sociology, focused on research methods and applied statistics from California State University. Kirsten has a history of quickly building and maintaining strong professional and personal relationships, always looking for ways to embed kindness, compassion, and joy in her interactions. She hopes to leverage her personal experience with recovery along with her professional skills to serve in her role with Healers without Borders and make a difference.
She explains, "I believe in the vision of Healers without Borders. I believe in the power of even the smallest act of kindness and love." Kirsten loves to spend time with her family, run, and her involvement in the broader bay area community through playing bagpipes with the MacIntosh Pipe Band.
Chris Cunnie
Advisor
A native of the Mission district, Chris grew up watching his parents give back through their roles in the community. From those early beginnings, he took to heart the desire to serve.
In 1979, Chris’s life changed dramatically. He was introduced to the 12 Steps of Recovery and the Fellowships of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Those programs led him to a career in the Criminal Justice System and have been instrumental in guiding him every day since.
Chris has a many-storied background in law enforcement. He was a former Senior Advisor to then-senator Kamala Harris. Before Chris retired as the Undersheriff of San Francisco in 2011, he served as an S.F. Police Officer, spending 17 years on patrol. Another 8 years were spent as President of the S.F. Police Officer’s Association.
In addition to working in law enforcement, Chris served as President of the Board of Directors for the San Francisco-based Walden House (now Health Right 360).
Chris’s focus is on where he came from and he knows that safe spaces can only exist if communities work together. HWB can be the catalyst for that unification and change.
John Penna
Board Member
John Penna was born in October 1942 and is a lifelong resident of South San Francisco. John received a BA degree from San Francisco State University in 1973, with a major in Economics and a minor in Real Estate and Business.
While John began his real estate career in 1964, as a salesman, he obtained his Real Estate Broker License and open his office in 1966, recently celebrating 47 years of continuous operation. In 1970, he expanded into Real Estate Property Management and 41 years later is ending that part of his business. John later expanded his business to include Real Estate Appraisal and received a certified real estate license, keeping that until 2021.
In 1980, John was one of several that started Liberty Bank in South SanFrancisco and served on the board of directors until 2001. He was also instrumental in starting Damion House for young kids who need addiction support.
And in 1989, he was elected to the South San Francisco City Council where he served as Mayor in 1992, retiring from the city council in 2000.
Currently, John continues to run Penna Realty, a real estate sales office. His guiding principle is that service to others is key in real estate and as an elected official. This life of service began early in his life and continues to lead him every day.
