Emily Dowdall

Emily Dowdall is President of Policy Solutions at Reinvestment Fund. She works with government, philanthropic, nonprofit, and other civic leaders across the country to support strategic decision-making to strengthen communities. Ms. Dowdall leads a team of skilled analysts in conducting research and building analytic tools that help stakeholders implement effective interventions and address entrenched challenges.

Ms. Dowdall’s expertise includes understanding and intervening in housing markets, strategies to stabilize households and neighborhoods, affordable housing needs, fair housing, early child education access, and program evaluation. She has studied housing markets in dozens of cities, led recent evaluations of Philadelphia’s eviction diversion and tenant Right to Counsel programs, written about investor activity in cities including Richmond, VA and Jacksonville, FL, analyzed access to quality childcare in Washington, D.C., Rhode Island, and other regions, and developed an implementation plan for reducing the BIPOC homeownership gap in Philadelphia.

Ms. Dowdall joined Reinvestment Fund in 2016 as Chief of Policy Implementation and Development and then served as Policy Director and Managing Director before being named President of Policy Solutions. Prior to Reinvestment Fund, she led research efforts on critical issues facing Philadelphia and other cities for the Pew Charitable Trusts, producing major reports on gentrification, the role of public libraries in big cities, and property taxes. She has also worked in policy research at NYU and in New York City’s Office of the Mayor. Ms. Dowdall holds a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also teaches, and a B.A. in Metropolitan Studies from New York University.

Sub-specialties:

PUBLIC POLICY related to the specific issues listed below in reference to HOUSING, FOOD, EDUCATION & CHILDCARE

HOUSING
- affordable housing
- housing policy
- evictions and eviction prevention
- barriers to homeownership/racial homeownership gap
- mortgage access
- fair housing
- gentrification
- urban redevelopment

FOOD
- food deserts
- supermarket access

EDUCATION & CHILDCARE
- access to early childhood education
- childcare sector