Elizabeth Giardino

Elizabeth Giardino’s evaluation and technical assistance work on housing, community development, asset building, and government innovation policies and programs promotes more equitable access to opportunity and healthy outcomes for people across the U.S. Giardino specializes in leading teams, strategic planning, and relationship building, and has proven expertise in community-based participatory research and incorporating equitable approaches into technical assistance engagements.

Giardino currently serves as the Project Director for Abt’s portfolio of technical assistance (TA) engagements related to housing, communities, and asset building. She supports the 30-person team's ability to deliver high quality TA through training and peer learning, and strengthening equitable approaches to maximize the value of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) investments. She also serves as the primary point of contact for HUD on strategy, administration, and performance for Abt’s portfolio of approximately $30 million in funding to support housing and communities TA initiatives.

Through this work, she and Abt’s TA team build community capacity by supporting the strategic planning and successful implementation of affordable housing, community development, fair housing, and disaster recovery and resiliency programs and policies. Additionally, Giardino serves as Project Director for TA engagements under HUD’s Thriving Communities TA program supporting cities and local jurisdictions as they build and preserve location-efficient affordable housing in disadvantaged communities.

Earlier in her career at Abt, Giardino served as project director for the NYC Opportunity’s Qualitative Poverty Study and qualitative lead for HUD’s evaluation of the Supportive Services Demonstration. She also contributed to HUD TA resources, including the Maximizing Investments Toolkit, Explore CDBG, and Creating Opportunity in Every Community: A Practical Guide to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.

Expertise:

• Technical Assistance and Capacity Building
• Project Management
• Strategic Planning
• Team Building
• Research and Evaluation

Key Projects:

• HUD’s Community Compass Technical Assistance & Capacity Building Program
• HUD’s Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Program
• HUD’s Supportive Services Demonstration Evaluation (IWISH)
• NYC Opportunity’s Qualitative Study to Enhance the NYCgov Poverty Measure

Publications:

• Abt Global. (2020). Final Report for the NYC Service Design Studio Evaluation. New York, NY: NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity.
• Abt Global. (2014). Evaluation of the Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) Teams Pilot Final Report. Washington, DC: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• Giardino, Elizabeth, Anna Jefferson, Deena Schwartz, Bennett Heine, Alyssa Kogan, and Arturo Nava. (2021). Qualitative Study to Enhance the NYCgov Poverty Measure. New York, NY: NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity.
• Giardino, Elizabeth, Melissa Vandawalker, Tresa Kappil, Anna Robinson, and Cayla Roby. (2021). Supporting Aging in Place Through IWISH: Second Interim Report from the Evaluation of the Supportive Services Demonstration. Washington, DC: Office of Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
• Thomas, Hannah and Elizabeth Giardino. (2017). Using Participatory Action Research to Reveal the Successes and Barriers in Take-up of Free Broadband Internet Access for Low-Income Residents of New York City, presented at APPAM, Chicago, IL, 2017.