YMHA must cast wide net in search for new director

YMHA must cast wide net
in search for new director

The future course of neighborhood and community development in Youngstown will ride heavily on the leadership acumen of the next executive director of the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority.

That’s why it is imperative that the search committee for the vacant leadership post exhaust all avenues to ensure the best qualified individual is tapped. That means committee members must start by casting a wide net, focusing on candidates outside the region with supervisory experience and strong expertise over urban housing policies, projects and funding mechanisms.

To be sure, recently retired YMHA director Eugenia Atkinson, who served at the helm of the authority since 1998, succeeded in reshaping the face of public housing in Youngstown.

Gone for the most part are the dumpy, dilapidated, crime-infested, large-scale public housing complexes, best symbolized in Youngstown by the Westlake Terrace projects. They’ve been replaced with attractive new developments with an emphasis on modern single-family homes, most visibly symbolized by the Arlington Heights neighborhood rising on the near North Side.

It is critical that such progress continues. To that end, the search must begin with the deepest pool of national candidates possible to ensure committee members have a fighting chance of selecting a director up to the myriad challenges of contemporary urban housing.

Nationally, the surge in foreclosures and the extreme downturn in the housing market are beckoning recession and are creating new demands on public housing stewards here and across the country. The new YMHA executive director must be one fully in tune with such public policy perplexities and one who has insights and resources to combat them as effectively as possible.

Locally, housing is playing a leading role in the Youngstown 2010 plan for redeveloping the city. Whoever is selected to oversee the authority’s 12 public housing communities and thousands of Section 8 dwellings must also become a key player in realization of the lofty but attainable goals of achieving a renaissance of Youngstown neighborhoods in every quadrant of the city.

Good crop of early candidates

Fortunately, the search committee already has attracted a healthy helping of candidates from other housing authorities across the United States. The former director of the Flint, Mich., housing authority, a supervisor with the Philadelphia Housing Authority and the director of Section 8 housing program in Spartanburg, S. C., are prime among them.

The crop of local candidates includes many who have been close to the YMHA. We would advise caution in leaning too heavily too early on such candidates. For example, one candidate is Robert Bush, former city police chief. Bush, however, also served as chairman of the board of the YMHA and recently resigned to pursue the director’s post. Were he to be selected, just the appearance of back-door dealmaking and impropriety could well weigh him down and sully the improving image of YMHA. The authority could ill afford that. Other candidates, including some employees of the YMHA, might be considered if all outside avenues fall short.

For now, however, committee members must take the long road by aggressively soliciting and evaluating new blood among outside candidates. Ongoing neighborhood improvement and success of the city’s much-touted Youngstown 2010 plan may well hinge on it.