Samantha DeKoven

Samantha DeKoven focuses on MPC’s employer-assisted housing initiative, helping design and implement customized employer programs in the Chicago region as well as providing technical assistance to help organizations, companies, and local governments across the country with employer-assisted housing. She advocates for policies that promote workforce housing solutions linked to jobs and transportation options. She helped successfully advance EAH legislation in Illinois and Nevada, and has been a panelist, moderator, or speaker on employer-assisted housing at conferences nationwide.

Prior to her current role, Samantha worked with employers in the Chicago region to develop, execute and evaluate EAH programs. She convened a collaborative of nonprofit housing counseling organizations to partner with these employers and administer their housing programs, engaged employers as advocates for housing policy and production, and worked with Illinois’ housing finance agency to establish state matching funds and tax credits for employer-assisted housing investments.

Samantha came to MPC in 1999 as project manager for the Regional Rental Market Analysis, which measured the rental housing market in northeastern Illinois. Prior to MPC, she worked on community development and reinvestment issues at the Woodstock Institute. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University and attended Harvard University’s Executive Education “Developing Affordable Workforce Housing” program.