Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan
Joan and Sanford Weill Hall
Assistant Director of Policy and Impact
Karen Otzen Kling is the assistant director of policy and impact for Poverty Solutions. She previously worked as interim managing director and a senior strategic projects manager at Poverty Solutions and as an affordable housing policy fellow within the City of Detroit’s Housing and Revitalization Department on the Policy and Implementation Team. In that role, Kling supported efforts to develop plans and strategies for lasting housing affordability and single-family housing stabilization in Detroit. The fellow position is a unique partnership between the University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions initiative and the city, meant to facilitate the implementation of action-oriented research. Prior to joining Poverty Solutions, Kling worked as a marketing research analyst for a consulting firm in Cincinnati and recently completed her master’s degree in urban and regional planning at U-M’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in business economics from Miami University, with a minor in international business.
A partnership between researchers at Poverty Solutions and Princeton University’s Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, Understanding Deep Disadvantage seeks to unpack poverty beyond income-based measures to other dimensions of disadvantage, including health and social mobility.
Poverty Solutions and its partners have explored supportive land contracts as a path to homeownership and the policies needed to reduce abuse of predatory land contracts.