Going Green with Brenda Willis, EarthCraft Virginia Board of Director and Executive Director of Chesapeake Redevelopment and Housing Authority
“A Changed Name, A Consistent Aid”
Although Chesapeake, Virginia, was originally settled in the late 1600s, the area of South Norfolk, Virginia, didn’t officially become Chesapeake until major local governmental changes in 1963. The Chesapeake Redevelopment and Housing Authority(CRHA) was established that same year to help provide housing and ease the redistricting process.
The Chesapeake population has grown steadily in the decades since, with a substantial boom in the 1980s and 1990s. “The city almost doubled in size during that time,” says Brenda Willis, who started working at the CRHA in 1994 and became the executive director in 1997.
Now, the CRHA—rated a “High Performer” by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—currently employs 65 people and manages 467 public-housing units, 228 affordable-housing units, and 597 private units. And despite difficult economic circumstances, the nonprofit continues to use its longstanding influence in the community to facilitate housing opportunities for those struggling the most—something it has done under one name or another for the past 62 years.
By: Benjamin van Loon
Full Article, http://bit.ly/SUvUaf