Emily Alvarado

Emily Alvarado is vice president, Pacific Northwest market, for Enterprise Community Partners. She oversees Enterprise’s work in Washington and Oregon to create and preserve affordable homes and brings programmatic solutions to scale through policy advocacy. Her work includes directing Enterprise’s Washington Early Learning Loan Fund and the Puget Sound Taxpayer Accountability Account Early Learning Facilities Fund.

Before joining Enterprise, Emily worked at Seattle’s Office of Housing, which she joined 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 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 and accelerated production of Permanent Supportive Housing. Emily also forged partnerships with stakeholders across the city to advance housing production and preservation programs.

Emily has extensive policy advocacy experience including leadership positions in nonprofits such as Pittsburgh UNITED, a coalition of community, labor, faith and environmental organizations, and the Housing Consortium of Seattle-King County.

She was named to the Puget Sound Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” list in 2020. Emily also serves as 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.