It also offers partial subsidies for private housing, assisting another 32,000 people, and administers federal Section 8 vouchers.

[4] The agency's performance is periodically reviewed by a nine-member council, the BHA Monitoring Committee, which reports to the mayor.

[7] In 1962, upon receipt of a lawsuit filed by a civil rights group, the West Broadway Housing Development was desegregated after having been designated by the city for white-only occupancy since 1941.

As a result of the ruling which was in favor of the tenants, a court-appointed master prepared a report listing recommendations that provided the basis for a consent decree signed in 1977 by BHA, Greater Boston Legal Services and the Boston Public Housing Tenants Policy Council.

Since 1990, when the receivership ended, BHA has been directed by an administrator whose activities are reviewed by a nine-member monitoring committee appointed by the mayor of Boston.