Dr. Margot Kushel: Warrior For The Homeless

Margot Kushel Image by Courtesy of Margot Kushel
Dr. Margot Kushel is one of the nation’s leading researchers into geriatric homelessness, she approaches the topic with her Jewish values in mind. In 2006, Kushel co-wrote the first study on the issue, discovering that the average age of the homeless population in the United States was in the mid-50s. Since then, Kushel, who is 52, has been awarded tens of millions of dollars to research homelessness.
“It should shock us as a nation that we have this problem,” Kushel told the San Francisco Chronicle in a March 2019 profile. “It’s almost too painful to realize.”

Margot Kushel Image by Courtesy of Margot Kushel
What do you have for breakfast? A hard boiled egg
What’s the last thing you listened to on your phone? A new mix from Apple Music
Earliest Jewish memory: Seder with my grandparents
**Heroes:* Ruth Bader Ginsburg, some of the amazing housing activists I get to work with; and many others.
Favorite 2019 memory: Friday night dinners with my family
What is your favorite thing about being Jewish? Questioning everything
What app can you not live without? NYTimes on my phone!
Weekend ritual: Going for a long swim.
Follow Margot Kushel on Twitter, @mkushel
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chief