Eight Cambridge Housing Authority residents have completed an academic program at the Wentworth Institution of Technology in Boston that puts them on the road to a career as property managers, a bright spot amid fears of funding cuts and other recent bad news. The trainees are now working alongside authority property managers in the second part of the program: a 10- or 20-week paid internship.
When they finish, the trainees may work for the housing authority – or not. If they don’t want or get a job with CHA, “they can apply to any number of management organizations throughout the city,” said John Lindamood, director of resident services. “We sold it to these folks as ‘This is free. You’re going to earn a credential from a highly respected institution.’”
Jeremy Duval, 25, and Getinete Dendir, 46, were already in college when they heard about the program. Duval, who lives with his family in a North Cambridge apartment with help from a Section 8 rent voucher, is studying accounting and finance at Northeastern University.
He said he had been interested in property management before getting a letter about the program, because he wants to develop affordable housing himself. “I like to help people,” Duval said.
Duval was also in the authority’s Work Force Youth Program, which gives intensive academic and vocational help to young CHA residents starting in sixth grade, aimed at getting them into postsecondary education and helping them finish. He obtained a scholarship to Northeastern as part of the program, he said.
“I’ve realized how much the community has helped me,” he said.
Dendir also is a Section 8 tenant. And he was studying computer networking at Wentworth when he was accepted into the property manager program, he said. In his case, the paid internship and possibly work at CHA could give him the money he needs to complete his degree, he said. “I only have two courses left that I need to take full time,” Dendir said.
The developers of the training program didn’t expect all participants to become property managers at CHA or even work for the agency; instead, they wanted to create a “career ladder” for residents.
First try
A previous policy designed to move residents into positions as assistant property managers and later property managers ran into problems after a reorganization of the management workforce about seven years ago and “consolidated from five to three field positions,” director of operations Kevin Braga said.
The changes meant wider gaps between the skills needed for the different levels of property manager jobs, Braga said. CHA had been informally training residents to move up the chain, starting with “tenant coordinator” and next moving to assistant property manager.
Under that system, “there was quite a large jump between tenant coordinator and assistant property manager,” Braga said. “We found that tenant coordinators weren’t qualifying or had a hard time qualifying.” The question was, “How do we form a career path?” he said.
Finding a partner
CHA wanted to work with an educational institution on a resident training program, and chose Cambridge College, an unconventional institution that offered everything from certificates to master’s degrees. The college, which was based in Cambridge until a move to Charlestown in 2017, was to provide the academic part of the training.
But when Bay Path University, based in Longmeadow, acquired Cambridge College early last year, the college withdrew from the collaboration with CHA, upending two years of planning. The 10 candidates for the training program had already been chosen when “we got the rug pulled out from us,” authority executive director Michael Johnston told his board in February 2024. “We spent all of the spring of 2024 looking for a new partner,” Lindamood recalled.
The CHA planners found Wentworth Institute of Technology, the 122-year-old Boston engineering and technology institution that offers certificate, undergraduate and master’s degrees. Wentworth and the authority worked out a special curriculum that included four standard courses and two special ones adapted for affordable housing, Braga said.
“We were trying to be cognizant of the busy lives our residents lead,” Lindamood said. So Wentworth agreed to schedule classes once a week over seven-week sessions “to make sure we were not overwhelming our participants,” he said. The academic part of the training program began last September and ended in February.
Succeeding in class
As for selecting trainees, 87 residents responded to recruitment materials, about 40 came to an information meeting and 21 submitted applications, said Robert Kelsey, director of human resources. CHA staff interviewed the applicants and tested them for facility in mathematics and English to make sure they were prepared for the courses. Of the 10 residents chosen, two dropped out of the Wentworth courses.
The program included an unusual degree of support for trainees, some of whom were the first in their families to go to college. Wentworth designated a “point person” to help the students and CHA had a social worker and a clinician on staff whom trainees could consult.
Duval, the trainee who wants to develop affordable housing, said he appreciated the support. “Every time I turned to them for help they were helping me far more than I could imagine,” he said.
Kelsey said: “We wanted to make sure we were creating a challenging program for residents. We also wanted to make sure we were supporting them.”
Recruiting anew
The city of Cambridge contributed $30,000 for the one-time cost of revising Wentworth’s usual schedule and curriculum to accommodate the CHA residents and include requested specific elements of affordable housing property management. The authority paid Wentworth an annual fee of $125,000 from its own funds.
Now, “we’re beginning to recruit a new cohort,” Lindamood said. The academic part of the program will begin in September, he said. For now, CHA will continue the training, with its annual fee, though “we’re not in a position to project for a certain amount of time,” he said.
“It’s an exciting thing. We have to take it step by step,” Lindamood said.
A stronger
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