Michelle Whetten

Michelle Whetten is vice president, Gulf Coast Market and senior advisor, Upward Mobility for Enterprise Community Partners. 

Michelle is based in New Orleans, where Enterprise has invested over $400 million in loans, grants and equity towards the production of 12,000 affordable homes in the years following Hurricane Katrina. She leads Enterprise’s work in the Gulf region to create and support effective systems and tools for high quality affordable housing production, to attract private-sector capital and to strengthen the affordable housing industry. She led Enterprise’s partnership in the award-winning transformation of the former Lafitte public housing complex in New Orleans’ Treme neighborhood into a healthy mixed-income community. She also advises other areas affected by disaster on effective disaster recovery policy and program design.

Prior to working in the Gulf Coast, Michelle was deputy director for Enterprise’s New York office, where she led neighborhood initiatives and public policy efforts. In that role, Michelle managed organizational development, resident services-related technical assistance and grant making programs, and directed advocacy and outreach to local, state and federal officials on housing and community development issues. 

Before joining Enterprise, Michelle managed the Prince George’s County, Maryland, office of the Neighborhood Design Center, a Baltimore-based nonprofit organization, where she recruited and coordinated pro bono services of architects, engineers and planners to assist with community-sponsored projects.

Michelle graduated from the University of California, Davis with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning and received a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois.

Michelle is past president and current board member of the Louisiana Association of Affordable Housing Providers. She is current chair of the board of Springboard to Opportunities, and serves on the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas Advisory Council and the boards of Gulf Coast Housing Partnership, Providence Community Housing and Reconcile New Orleans.