Support our efforts to break the cycle of poverty

Cambridge Housing Authority Launches an Endowment to Support the Resident Services Work Force Program

The Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA) launched an endowment in 2021 aimed at creating a sustainable funding source for its nationally-recognized youth development program, The Work Force.  

The Cambridge Community Foundation will manage the new fund. The CHA is seeking to raise at least $1.5 million from outside sources over the next several years to build on a generous initial gift of $500,000 from a private donor.

The endowment will provide sustainable income to support the CHA’s Work Force Youth Program, an innovative educational enhancement, college prep, and job-readiness program that assists low-income youth in attaining the early assets necessary to build generational wealth and to enter the economic mainstream. The endowment will provide a more stable annual funding source for many decades to come. Preliminary conversations with prospective contributors to the endowment have been positive and CHA is working with CCF to create a robust fundraising strategy to reach our goal of $1.5 million in endowment funds by 2024.

In order to keep our programming innovative and sustainable we need your support. Your contribution will directly impact our youth and families, since CHA covers all admin and overhead costs. You can donate online below via Paypal or by check made out to “Resident Services Empowerment Inc.” and mailing it to us at 362 Green Street, c/o Cambridge Housing Authority, Cambridge, MA 02139.

Although the Resident Services Department is part of Cambridge Housing Authority, we operate a lot like an independent not-for-profit organization, with close to 50% of our budget coming from outside sources in form of grants and contracts as seen in our funders page. The Resident Services Department’s budget is about $1.8 million dollars with 80% of it going to support direct programming cost. All admin and overhead costs are covered by our biggest funder, the Cambridge Housing Authority. Therefore any individual contribution goes towards direct programming cost. In order to keep our programming sustainable into the future we need to shift our funding paradigm to 60% of our funds coming from individuals and foundations, while only 40% or less coming from Cambridge Housing Authority. This is due to the lower reimbursement rates by HUD and a diminished support by HUD for resident services activities. Currently CHA receives no support from the HUD for any of our resident services programming.