Resident Empowerment Coalition to hold 2nd Annual Conference

The BHA’s Resident Empowerment Coalition is holding its second annual conference for BHA public housing and Section 8./Housing Choice Voucher residents on July 19.  The conference is free and offers educational workshops and resources to assist with and increase resident engagement.  The conference will be held at Roxbury Community College from 9 am to 4 pm.

The goals of the summit include strengthening the partnership between the Boston Housing Authority and its residents to better involve them in the decision making process; providing residents with information regarding the BHA’s budget; creating a citywide network of information between BHA tenants, the BHA and its partners enabling them to share resources, challenges, and effective strategies; and engaging residents around current energy conservation practices and the BHA’s Sustainability Plan.

Residents interested in attending must pre-register by July 3 by calling the BHA Resident Empowerment Coalition office at 617-988-5316 / 617-988-5292 or by email.  Registration will be on a first come, first served basis until capacity is reached.

The BHA’s Resident Empowerment Coalition (REC) is comprised of public housing and leased housing tenants, housing advocacy agencies, health agencies and legal advocates.  Its mission is to educate and mobilize residents to support resident organizing and the capacity of resident organizations in all BHA public housing - state and federal properties - and among Section 8 voucher residents so that residents are engaged in BHA programs, policymaking, and community development opportunities.  Using the America Corp model, REC created the Resident Housing Corp Member Program. This model is a tenant train tenants program. The RHCM program hires and trains BHA public and leased housing tenants or volunteers to educate, train and organize various leadership groups across the city of Boston.  In 2013 the RHCM recruited and trained 48 new emerging leaders onto their local tenant organizations. In addition, the RHCMs help identify key policy issues that residents want or need to know more about and help put together the Resident Summit/Annual Conference to address these key issues.  In 2013, thirty nine BHA staff came together to provide educational workshops for 220 tenants.  This year’s conference is sponsored by the BHA’s Center for Community Engagement and Civil Rights and Roxbury Community College.