Organziation Changer - Philadelphia Housing Authority (pha)

The strategic direction and goals included in this plan are The Philadelphia Housing Authority response to its understanding of what its client's value most about the organization, and current opportunities and challenges for offering a high quality system of support in the community for people in need of affordable housing.

The Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) is the nation's fourth largest public housing agency serving more than 74,000 residents in the city of Philadelphia. PHA is the first housing authority in the United State designated by the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) of the National Association of Realtors as an Accredited Management Organization. Philadelphia Housing Authority has been successful in transforming public housing to a state-chartered authority; which means they are not subject to city charter requirements. If they were subject to city charter requirements, it could slow down city-managed capital-improvement projects. PHA is one of the most successful Housing Authorities in the country. However, it was recently mismanaged by the Executive Director Carl Greene who was alleged to have mismanaged funds, and to have sexually harassed several of his employees. Due to these allegations he was fired by the Broad of Commissioners. My role at PHA is an Organizational Development Consultant whose job is to find out what went wrong with this organization, and help with the organizational changes. That is needed to bring the PHA back to the productive agency it was.

• 4th largest housing authority in the nation

• Pennsylvania's largest landlord

• Established in 1937

• Total budget of $312 million

• Serves 84,000 people with affordable housing

• Employs 1,225 people

• Has over 50 developments

• Has more than 4,000 occupied scattered housing units (scattered sites)

• Manages the Housing Choice Voucher Program, with more than 16,000 households

• Supervised by a five-member Board of Commissioners

Even though most of the PHA's achievements were done when Carl Greene became the Executive Director; he had a tremendous negative effect on the Housing Authority structure. The employees had been working under an authoritarianism and combative style Executive Director, and in the last 12 years the organization went from a well structured organization to a rundown organization. This has left the organization in a state of mismanagement.

The biggest problem with the leadership was the style in which the organization was run. The morale is so low that productivity is suffering. The organization

...