Olorunfunmi Adebajo has won the 2025 Rutgers University- Camden, United States of America (USA) for her prevention solution to homelessness in USA.
Olorunfunmi Adebajo was awarded the 2025 Rutgers University–Camden Chancellor’s Award for Student Civic Engagement — the highest honor the university bestows for civic leadership — for her year-long research and Master’s capstone: Shared Housing as a Preventative Solution to Homelessness in Camden County.
The Chancellor’s award is fiercely competitive, recognising only a handful of exceptional leaders each year for advancing social equity and systemic change.
As a Master’s student of Rutgers University–Camden studying Public Administration and Community Development while seeking to tackle poverty on a global scale, “My first reaction to the poverty and homelessness in Camden was shocking—people were sleeping outside in the cold. I thought, how can this be happening in God’s own country? I have had extensive experience working with vulnerable populations in Nigeria and with that knowledge and confidence, I started researching preventative solutions to poverty for Camden City,” she recalls.
Her research found it could cut emergency shelter costs by 40%, reduce public spending, and help people stabilise faster than traditional shelter stays.
Shared housing, she explains, “is when two or more unrelated adults live together, each with private sleeping space but shared common areas. As an African, communal living is part of how we survive—shared housing made sense to me culturally, and I was able to justify it with lived experience and data”.
To make her policy recommendations truly relevant, she worked directly with the Camden County Police Department (CCPD) on outreach to unhoused residents.
“Over the last year, I must have interacted with at least 100 people experiencing homelessness. My work was mostly research but I also wanted to hear stories from people with lived experiences so that I could develop policies relevant to their actual needs. Working with the CCPD, I met people in encampments, under bridges, and in shelters, offering housing support, medical care, and resources. I was excited when my capstone was celebrated as one of the best in my entire MPA cohort. My policy recommendations also yielded results as the County engaged stakeholders for training on the benefits of Shared Housing.”
Today, when governments, academic institutions, and development agencies seek insight into preventative poverty strategies for urban slums and high poverty cities, Olorunfunmi’s story and methods stand as a blueprint: start with dignity, design for sustainability, and bridge local realities with economically sound systemic reforms.
Olorunfunmi’s humanitarian journey started back home in Nigeria in 2015 when a Facebook post changed her life—and ultimately, the lives of thousands. She shared the story of Gbolahan, a homeless man she found drunk and destitute in Isolo, Lagos. Determined to help, she housed him, mobilized her online community, and secured medical care, clothing, and job offers.
The most important intervention then, came when Keji Hamilton, Fela Kuti’s former keyboardist turned pastor, admitted Gbolahan into the House of Joy rehabilitation centre in Mushin, Lagos where he gained skills, mentorship, and a second chance at life.
That act of compassion sparked the birth of the Kindle Africa Empowerment Initiative, foubded by Olorunfunmi, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering and improving access to education for people in vulnerable communities in Lagos’s urban slums such as Makoko and Ajegunle.
Through grassroots advocacy, gender equity programs, and innovative skills training, Olorunfunmi Adebajo emerged as one of Nigeria’s leading young social entrepreneurs, earning her the prestigious Mandela Washington Fellowship from the United States Department of State in 2016.
