By JEANETTE WOLFBERG
HUDSON–A new manager, a new commissioner, and a graduation speech by Executive Director Jeffrey Dodson highlighted the Hudson Housing Authority (HHA) Board of Commissioners meetings in January and February. The HHA runs the 135-unit income-restricted Bliss Tower and Columbia Apartments in Hudson.
At the February 18 meeting, Mr. Dodson announced that the HHA is about to get an asset manager to oversee its buildings, properties, maintenance, and staff. The manager will serve as an additional person that HHA residents can contact about pertinent situations and free up time for Mr. Dodson to focus on other executive director duties. This individual will start working for the HHA full-time on March 3.
Also at the February 18 meeting, a HHA resident asked whether people are still moving into Bliss Tower and Columbia Apartments.
“Yes,” Mr. Dodson answered.
The resident then proceeded to ask to ask how “this Trump nonsense” effects the HHA.
Mr. Dodson explained that initially there was an immediate freeze on all federal funds for public housing, but thanks to activism, the funds are flowing again. Now “we’re taking it month by month.”
As for redeveloping HHA land, the HHA has submitted a new proposal to the state, is waiting for feedback, and will submit applications for funding, Mr. Dodson said. “We’re at a good pace.”
Later, in response to another question, Mr. Dodson reported that about 53 of the units in Bliss Tower and Columbia Apartments are “vacant.” Of these, about 13 are in good enough shape to be rentable with affordable renovations. Therefore, of the 135 units, about 95 are or can be rented.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dodson has completed a continuing education program for public housing executive directors and received the honor of giving the graduation speech, when he and 40 fellow students received their Certificate of Completion at the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association (PHADA) Conference in January in Miami.
The Executive Director Education Program (EDEP), run by PHADA and Rutgers University, is a series of 10 one-day, six-hour professional development courses that participants must complete in order to obtain the Certificate. Examples of topics are ethics, public relations, financial management, legal matters and new developments, according to information on the program. Mr. Dodson’s fellow graduates came from all over all over the U.S.
Revonda Smith, chairman of the HHA’s Board of Commissioners, also attended the conference.
In his speech, Mr. Dodson called the graduation “the beginning of a new chapter in our professional journey. We are part of a network of leaders who are making a difference in the lives of the residents we serve.” One purpose, he said, is to give these residents “a hand up, not a hand out, on the road to self-sufficiency.”
He proceeded to tell about his own experience “enduring” public housing as a youth with his mother for 23 years.
When Mr. Dodson was about five, he reported, his mother moved them into public housing, because she “could not afford market rate housing,” with her ambition to put him and herself through college. Within about four years, she had gone to community college, transferred to Seton Hall, and gotten her BA. Two years later, she got an MA and became a special education teacher while still living in public housing and raising a child. Eventually, Mr. Dodson graduated from Seton Hall, and his mother got a doctorate in Christian Education. Finally she was able to buy a two-family house, where she lived with her son (Mr. Dodson) and his family for the rest of her life.
While living in public housing, Mr. Dodson got familiar with maintenance, repairmen, communications from the authority’s office and the community. When his mother left to go to school and work, she dropped him off at the apartment of a neighbor who took him and other children to and from school and kept them until their parents picked them up. His mother, in return, took children to church and baked bread. He helped deliver the bread to apartments.
The HHA also has a new commissioner on its board, Sara Black. She attended the January 21 meeting, but the February 18 meeting was the first one she attended after taking the commissioners’ oath of office. Previously, she had worked with the Hudson Community Development and Planning Agency (HCDPA).
In a conversation February 5, Ms. Black said she has a PhD in Critical Geography from the University of Georgia and now works full time at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a lecturer in environmental studies. She moved to Hudson in 2012 to help develop Columbia County’s rural economy and “work on farms,” but also “spent a lot of time researching the neighborhood” comprising Bliss.
“There are a handful of people who are really passionate about the history of that neighborhood,” she said. The neighborhood was mostly torn down in the 1970 urban renewal. Its houses were taken and its residents displaced. A lot of land around there is now owned by HHA or HCDPA.
Recently Ms. Black spent about two years on contract as with the HCDPA, writing a grant application, and as an administrative coordinator. After that stint, “people who I respect and thought I might have something to offer” asked her to join the HHA Board.
“I think it’s a really important time,” said Ms. Black. Hudson has a housing crisis, and “Bliss was not built to last.” But “we can’t keep uprooting the community” every time somebody thinks the land would bring more profits if used differently.
“I hope residents are heavily empowered to shape the fabric of the neighborhood and that the neighbors are supportive,” she said.
