Student researchers' reports to CHA

Rent payments and financial services for public housing tenants

In summer 2013 a Rappaport Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School did a survey of rent collection methods for CHA. Click HERE to read the report.

Memo

To: Gregory P. Russ, Executive Director

From: Carolina Lucey, Senior Program Manager, Communications & Policy

Date: 2/25/2011

During the Fall of 2010, CHA engaged in a semester-long consultancy project with a group of Harvard Kennedy School students. Fifteen students were divided into three groups that worked alongside CHA staff as consultants in three key areas of CHA’s administration. For over eight weeks the groups focused on the following topics:

Group 1 - Capital Group: Managing Growth in the Capital Program –  determining potential impact on CHA’ s delivery of services and design administrative processes to efficiently manage this growth.

Group 2 – Housing Choice Voucher Group: Determining Baseline Costs to Issue a Housing Choice Voucher.

Group 3 – Cambridge Career Family Opportunity Program Group: Framing the Metrics and Areas of Potential Study for the CCFO program, developing options for long-term evaluation.

At the end of the semester, the Executive Director was invited to the Kennedy School for a briefing on each group’s  final findings and suggestions. CHA expects to foster a relationship with the Harvard Kennedy School and continue offering the opportunity for students to gain real life experience as part of their academic curriculum.…

Below are links to the full CHA memo on the reports, and to the reports themselves:

• Memo about Reports to Gregory P. Russ, Executive Director of CHA
• Scaling Up and Managing Risk
  
• Mapping the Voucher Issuance Processs - Main Report and Appendix
• Career Family Opportunity