CHARLOTTE ABRAMS
College of Arts and Science
Bachelor of Arts, May 2013
Major: Economics
Bio and Resume (.pdf)
Charlotte is studying Economics in the College of Arts and Science with a minor in Social Entrepreneurship. She is interested in addressing economic inequality through creating and innovating supportive housing in the U.S. and abroad.
After moving to downtown Los Angeles in high school, Charlotte lived just blocks from Skid Row, the homeless capital of the country. Through volunteering at a local shelter, she soon learned that the most vulnerable homeless population, the chronic homeless, was not sufficiently assisted because the shelter lacked the resources necessary for consistent care. In 2009, Charlotte began interning at Enterprise Community Partners in New York where she led a research initiative on additional weatherization funding allocated under the 2009 Stimulus Plan. Her work on national affordable housing policy inspired her to research housing options for the chronic homeless on her own. In summer 2010, she interned at Emerging Markets, Inc., a Los Angeles based for-profit economic development consulting firm that brings banking and financial resources to the neighborhoods from which much of chronic homelessness stems.
Charlotte experienced first-hand the uncertainty and hopelessness that homeless individuals confront during her own family's brush with homelessness following the 2008-2009 recession. Impassioned by her family's experience, Charlotte is determined to innovate homeless organizations' funding streams on a large enough scale to significantly reduce, or end, chronic homelessness. Charlotte began forming a scalable business model in 2010 that she continues to develop. The result is Conscious Properties which explores how private real estate companies can profit from corporate social responsibility initiatives that benefit the homeless. Charlotte's work as co-founder helped Conscious Properties become finalists in the 2010-2011 NYU Reynolds/Youth Venture Be A Changemaker Challenge. Charlotte is also a Teaching Fellow of social entrepreneurship in the Stern School of Business and hopes to inspire her peers to take on social issues that are important to them.
Recognizing that even the most basic housing can provide immense opportunity to families everywhere, Charlotte plans to attend Law school to fight for property rights in urban slums while continuing to innovate affordable housing development in New York City. As a 2011 Reynolds Scholar, Charlotte hopes to explore the cross-section of supportive housing and real estate enterprise in domestic and international contexts.