UPD/HUPO Lecture: “More Than a Home: Public Housing as a Continuum of Services”

The Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA) is one of the nation’s leaders in the field of affordable housing, providing both a local model of success and leadership in the development of national housing policy. Steven Swanger will discuss his 33-year career as Director of Resident Services at the CHA, where he successfully constructed an interactive web of agencies and services to form a continuum of programming to address the needs of low-income residents of all ages, from pre-natal to elderly. Among the most successful elements in that continuum is The Work Force, a youth development program founded by Mr. Swanger and operated as an in-house component of the CHA since its inception in 1984. Throughout decades of collaboration between a local housing authority and a local school district, The Work Force has documented a startlingly high level of success in breaking the cycle of generational poverty among public housing teens. Jim Stockard, Lecturer in Housing Studies at the GSD and a Commissioner of the CHA, will join Mr. Swanger in a discussion on the development of resident services in public housing.

Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected].

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