Daniel Lugo

Daniel Lugo is pleased to serve YouthCare as the organization’s Director of Government Affairs. Having experienced the Washington state foster care system, as well as homelessness upon aging out, Daniel is passionate about advocating for systems change to better support (and empower!) young people in need. Prior to YouthCare, Daniel worked for the nonprofit Treehouse as their Manager of Policy and Government Relations. Treehouse is Washington state’s leading organization focused on educational equity for youth experiencing foster care. His accomplishments at Treehouse include: $2.2m to expand Treehouse's Graduation Success program to middle schools statewide; $920k to fund Educational Advocates who serve highly-mobile foster youth; $150k and a policy bill (HB 1679) to fund and expand the Project Education Impact workgroup; authorizing language to offer more expansive services through the Treehouse Driver's Assistance program; and more. Daniel’s journey in advocacy began at the Washington State Legislature, where he served the 43rd Legislative District of Seattle on Speaker Emeritus Frank Chopp’s team. He independently convened stakeholders to create policy to improve Washington state’s publicly funded systems of care. For example, he developed budget language to secure $1.9 million for the Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF) to restructure their general framework for how they prepare young people to transition from foster care and juvenile rehabilitation to independence through their Independent Living Program. He also secured $750 thousand for the Office of Homeless Youth to initiate a process to develop and implement a no-wrong-door access point for youth from public systems of care, as well as youth who are at-risk of entering public systems of care, to access authentic crisis prevention services through a Lifeline for Independent Living pilot project. Daniel is eager to continue his career in advocacy but in his free time, he enjoys learning, engaging with the community, collecting sneakers, listening to music and spending time with his loved ones. His hometown is Monroe, Washington. He moved to Seattle in 2013 to attend the University of Washington and has lived in the city ever since graduating in 2017 with his degree in Political Science.