Daniel Lugo

Daniel Lugo is pleased to serve as the Director of Government affairs at YouthCare. He brings a unique perspective to the table, having been a part of the Washington state foster care system, as well as the Washington State Legislature. At the legislature, Daniel 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 to restructure their general framework for how they prepare youth to transition from foster care and juvenile rehabilitation to independence. He also secured $750 thousand for the Office of Homeless Youth to initiate a process to develop and implement a low-barrier access point for youth and adults from public systems of care, as well as youth who are at-risk of entering these systems of care, to authentically access crisis prevention services through a Lifeline for Independent Living. Prior to YouthCare, Daniel worked at Treehouse for Kids as their Manager of Policy & Government Relations. He partnered with internal staff, state agencies and legislators to develop legislation to expand the organization's Graduation Success, Educational Advocacy and Driver's Assistance programs. Additionally, he helped develop legislation to expand the scope of Project Education Impact - a workgroup consisting of community nonprofits, state agencies, and legislators to develop recommendations to improve the educational outcomes of youth experiencing homelessness, foster care, or juvenile rehabilitation. Daniel's 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.