Jeff Merkowitz is Senior Advisor at the CDFI Fund and brings three decades of both policy and direct, on the ground experience, in the areas of housing finance and community development. He previously served as Director of Operations and Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, where he crafted the Senator’s policy responses to both the foreclosure crisis and the longstanding shortage of affordable housing in California. His work for the Senator to expand refinancing opportunities led to the ability of over two million struggling homeowners to refinance their mortgages at historically low rates. He also led efforts in the Senate to restore funding for the Housing Trust Fund and Capital Magnet Fund.
Prior to that, Commissioner Merkowitz served as the Chief Financial Officer for Opportunity Fund, a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), where he created the financial infrastructure to manage the organization’s affordable housing development, small business, and New Markets Tax Credit loan programs. Additionally, he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica, where he organized local women’s groups to start up small businesses and provided assistance to rural communities with small development projects. Commissioner Jeff Merkowitz is a graduate of Princeton University and earned an MBA from the University of Michigan.