Ellen Kackmann MPP 1996

Kackmann Tackles Business of Public Policy

Ellen Kackmann, MPP'96 has a passion for affordable housing that dates to her childhood in New York City and which grew while volunteering in soup kitchens as an undergraduate at SUNY-Albany, where she started serving food and progressed to helping shelters statistically track their clientele.

"Working with the homeless was definitely part of it," she says, adding, "I had this [intuitive] appreciation of [affordable housing] having grown up in New York."

As senior analyst at New York-based American Property Financing Inc., a lender that frequently handles affordable-housing deals on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Kackmann strikes deals based on state and local housing authority programs. "I'm going out and talking to people and finding out what their needs are," she says.

During a nearly decade-long career that's focused on meeting such affordable housing needs, Kackmann has come to believe that the physical and financial benefits of homeownership might not be the most valuable ones.

"Housing has an ability to give us a greater sense of ownership about our lives and builds confidence," she says. "To have a piece of property that you call your own affects your mindset about how you feel about other aspects of your life, as well."

Immediately upon graduating from the Harris School, Kackmann worked in public sector consulting for Deloitte & Touche and then for the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, where she managed a program that sold city-owned properties to not-for-profit developers.

During that five-year time frame, Kackmann's passion for affordable housing merged with her desire to work in the private sector, which stemmed from viewpoints she heard at the University of Chicago through both taking electives at the Graduate School of Business and meeting Harris School alumni.

"I always heard that if you're interested in public policy, it's great to develop a perspective of the demands of the private sector," Kackmann says. "I took that advice to heart."

That led her to attend the NYU School of Business where her Harris degree enabled her to place out of basic economics and statistics courses. She took the opportunity that provided to tailor her degree "to my interest in real estate, and specifically housing, and more specifically affordable housing," she says.

"The reason I thought the MBA was important is that a lot of people thought, 'Public administration, that's the realm of government agencies.' But it's not," Kackmann adds. "There are so many different players who touch upon public policy. Their actions are either constrained or facilitated by public policy."

Subsequently, Kackmann became assistant vice president at Related Capital, where she raised money for low-income housing tax credit developments. That experience "was a nice way to continue working on the affordable housing projects, and to see how the private sector was tackling these issues," she says.

Kackmann has continued to do the same at American Property Financing, which handles real estate of all types but has plugged her into its originating affordable deals. "A big issue is affordable housing for the middle class," particularly in New York itself, she says. "I have a lot of friends who make pretty decent incomes, who can't purchase anything anymore."

Ed Finkel