Boston Housing Authority

The Boston Housing Authority (BHA) was established by order of the Boston City Council on Oct. 1, 1935, pursuant to St 1935, c 449, s 5, which empowered cities and towns of Massachusetts to establish housing authorities. Such a body is responsible for providing decent, safe, and sanitary housing for families unable to afford housing without public subsidy and for clearing substandard, decadent, or blighted open areas under the provisions of MGLA c 121B. To carry out these responsibilities BHA develops and manages housing projects and leases housing when necessary. It also performed the functions of an urban redevelopment authority until such a body was established separately pursuant to St 1957, c 150.

Housing authorities in Massachusetts are "bodies public and corporate" in that although they are created and their members appointed by a combination of municipal and state officials, once established they are managed, controlled, and governed by their members. Generally the authority's board of commissioners sets overall policy while the administrator and staff make recommendations to the board and carry out its daily operations. The autonomy of housing authorities, including BHA, is limited by the fact that their operations are funded and regulated by two supervisory agencies: the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development for federally-assisted housing and the Massachusetts Dept. of Community Affairs for state-assisted housing.

The management and governance of BHA has deviated from that of other housing authorities since 1975, when BHA was sued in Boston City Housing Court by a group of BHA tenants, represented by Greater Boston Legal Services, over poor conditions in housing projects under the authority's control. As the result of a ruling in favor of the tenants, a court-appointed master prepared a report listing recommendations that provided the basis for a consent decree signed in 1977 by BHA, Greater Boston Legal Services, and the Boston Public Housing Tenants Policy Council. The decree detailed a series of improvements that BHA was to make over the course of three years. The master, responsible for monitoring BHA's compliance with the consent decree, gave approval for all major decisions made by the BHA board and administrator. In 1979 the judge ruled that BHA had failed satisfactorily to fulfill the terms of the consent decree and BHA was placed in receivership, with its board of commissioners and administrator being replaced by a court-appointed receiver. Since 1990, when the receivership ended, BHA has been directed by an administrator whose activities are reviewed by a nine-member monitoring committee appointed by the mayor of Boston.

NAME AUTHORITY NOTE. Series relating to the agency described above can be found by searching the following access point for the time period stated: 1935-present--Boston Housing Authority.

From the description of Agency history record. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 145429909