Emily Bloom-Carlin

Emily Bloom-Carlin brings a decade of experience developing innovative housing policy solutions in the Chicago region, most recently as Senior Program Officer at The Preservation Compact.
At the Compact, Emily led a broad range of initiatives to expand housing access and preserve affordability through cross-sector partnerships. She spearheaded the creation and implementation of the Affordable Housing Special Assessment Program, a state-level tax incentive that has created and preserved several thousand units of affordable rental housing since its launch in 2022. During the pandemic, she convened a monthly cross-jurisdictional working group of city, county, and state emergency response teams to support the development of coordinated, equitable emergency rental assistance programs. She also helped structure the $36 million Opportunity Investment Fund, an innovative financing tool that leverages public, philanthropic, and private capital to preserve affordability in high-cost areas. Most recently, she co-led a national study with the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University, analyzing housing challenges and policy solutions across the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas.
Before joining the Compact, she conducted research and analysis at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, focusing on fair housing, environmental justice, and equitable development. Her approach to housing policy is shaped by her early career as a street outreach worker at social service nonprofits in Boston, where she witnessed how structural racial and economic inequities affect access to safe, affordable housing. She brings these diverse perspectives and extensive relationships with Chicago-area stakeholders to her work on housing policy.