Graduate School
Boston University

Undergraduate School
Bucknell University

Mentor
Sue Tracy, The Strategy Group, Inc.

Agency
MA Department of Housing and Community Development

Supervisor
Mary-Anne Morrison, Director, Bureau of Rental Assistance

Description of Fellowship
One of the Department of Housing and Community Development’s (DHCD) primary foci for fiscal year 2009 is the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP), which provides rental assistance to low-income tenants across the Commonwealth. The program is a tremendous resource for providing additional affordable housing in Massachusetts but has not been used to its fullest potential, so DHCD is planning on redesigning it. To begin this process, she spent her ten weeks at DHCD conducting 32 listening sessions with MRVP’s stakeholders, including Local Housing Authorities, Regional Administering Agencies, tenant advocacy groups, and legislators, in order to find out how they envision a reinvigorated MRVP. Based on the information she collected during these meetings and her personal experience working with MRVP at my past job, she formulated a recommendation on how to redesign the program. As DHCD moves forward with the overhaul of MRVP, they will use the document she wrote as a roadmap to guide the extensive process of rebuilding MRVP.