SEATTLE (Nov. 15, 2021) – Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) today announced Emily Alvarado as its new vice president and Pacific Northwest market leader. A public sector and nonprofit executive who most recently served as director of the Office of Housing for the City of Seattle, Alvarado brings years of experience leading policy and housing teams at a diverse group of nonprofits and governmental organizations to Enterprise.
“Emily has built a career as a powerful advocate for affordable homes and equitable communities, and we are so proud to welcome her to Enterprise,” said Jacqueline Waggoner, president of the Solutions division at Enterprise. “Emily’s track record of increasing housing opportunities and ensuring equitable development, combined with her experience bringing together diverse coalitions, make her uniquely qualified to lead Enterprise’s work in the Pacific Northwest alongside the many partners and community leaders who make our work possible.”
Alvarado will oversee Enterprise’s work in Washington and Oregon, where the organization helps create and preserve affordable homes, builds partner capacity and sustainability and brings programmatic solutions to scale through policy advocacy. Her work will include supervising Enterprise’s Home and Hope initiative, which accelerates the development of affordable housing with early learning centers and other community assets on tax-exempt sites.
Since its launch in 2017, Home and Hope has helped catalyze the development of thousands of homes and hundreds of early learning classrooms, addressing the parallel shortages of two critical foundations of opportunity. A key element of Home and Hope is the Washington Early Learning Loan (WELL) Fund, which provides financing, training, and technical assistance to rapidly expand early learning centers—a majority of which are Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)-led organizations. The WELL Fund’s equitable access to funding exemplifies how Enterprise helps partners advance affordable housing and educational and economic opportunities in vulnerable communities.
“I have worked alongside Enterprise as a partner for many years, and I am excited to join the organization and grow its impact on the people and communities we serve through housing,” said Alvarado. “I look forward to working with this fantastic team and our partners to bring more equity, affordability and opportunity to the Pacific Northwest.”
Alvarado joined Seattle’s Office of Housing in 2014 and was named director in 2019. During her tenure, she stewarded more than $275 million in investments that supported affordable rental housing and homeownership opportunities for more than 3,600 families. She also worked to implement community preference as a way to counter displacement; paved the way for new approaches to community-driven affordable housing connected to light rail; accelerated production of Permanent Supportive Housing; and forged partnerships with stakeholders across the city to advance housing production and preservation programs.
Alvarado’s prior roles included policy advocacy positions at the Housing Development Consortium of Seattle-King County and Pittsburgh UNITED, a coalition of community, labor, faith and environmental organizations. She was named to the Puget Sound Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” list in 2020. Alvarado also serves a board member for the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance and the Washington Housing Alliance Action Fund. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Scripps College and a juris doctor from the University of Washington School of Law.
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