Whitney Leeds (WIT-nee)

Biographical information

Whitney Leeds practiced criminal defense and immigration defense on the side of immigrants for six years before transitioning into community-based anti-poverty work, continuing to work primarily with the immigrant community. Prior to her legal career, Whitney worked in community organizing in New York City through an organization called Community Voices Heard, a membership-led organization founded by and for low-income people and people of color working on the issues impacting our communities.

Whitney currently oversees all the public policy, community organizing, and community-led projects at Growing Home, a community-based anti-poverty nonprofit that hosts the largest food pantry in the City of Westminster, along with offering a rental and utility assistance program, coaching, parenting education, and resource navigation. Whitney works with the participants of Growing Home’s direct service programming to build campaigns and projects on issues they’re most motivated by, typically in the areas of food security, housing, and immigrants’ rights. This includes a long-term campaign to address food insecurity in the Southwest Adams County region, changes to landlord-tenant law to protect low-income renters, and overseeing a community garden that provides fresh produce for the food pantry, among others.

She has provided legal support for social justice movements, training on immigrants’ rights, law enforcement interactions, among many other areas, and is a former board member of several other social justice nonprofits, including Arvadans for Social Justice, Above Waters Project, and the National Lawyers Guild. Whitney was also a founding core member of Black Lives Matter 5280. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in sociology from the City College of the City University of New York and received her J.D. from the University of Colorado Wolf School of Law.