Abigail Barton is a rising junior studying Public Policy and American Studies. She is passionate about her work as a housing navigator and advocate with Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE) as well as her involvement as a peer facilitator with Brown’s Sexual Assault Peer Education Program (SAPE). Abigail seeks to center the lived experiences of those most impacted by legislation in the policymaking process. As a peer educator with SAPE, she works extensively within the framework of transformative justice centered around survivorship. In her work as a housing advocate, she has seen first-hand the mechanisms purposely built into the American criminal justice system to criminalize poverty and homelessness. Driven by this work, she partnered with four of her HOPE peers to create a group independent study project focused on the role of storytelling in elevating and honoring the experiences of those often excluded from contributing to public narrative and memory. Abigail interned at the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), an organization dedicated to fighting for socially just policies to ensure those with the lowest incomes have affordable and decent homes.