John T. Dunlop Lecture: Kenzie Bok, “The Past, Present, and Future of Public Housing”

Why It Matters

Treating housing as a public good and empowering public housing authorities with financing tools could dramatically expand affordable, mixed‑income homes, directly addressing the nation’s affordability crisis and reshaping urban equity.

Key Takeaways

• Public housing must be treated as a public good.
• Expand public housing authority tools beyond subsidies to balance sheets.
• Integrate housing justice theory into policy design and implementation.
• Mixed‑income development can improve equity and community stability.
• Current affordability crisis demands bold public investment and institutional reform.

Summary

The 25th John T. Dunlop Lecture featured Boston Housing Authority CEO Kenzie Bok, who traced the evolution of public housing and warned that the nation’s deepening affordability crisis makes a re‑imagined public‑housing sector essential. Bok framed housing as a public good, arguing that the United States has historically treated it as a charitable afterthought rather than a core component of social infrastructure. She called for a coherent theory of housing justice—rooted in Rawlsian ideas of the “basic structure” of society—to guide policy, and urged public housing authorities to move beyond merely distributing subsidies toward building balance sheets and leveraging public finance for mixed‑income development. Bok highlighted Boston’s own scale, noting that many families can only remain in their neighborhoods by accessing BHA units, and cited emerging models in other cities where authorities are financing and stewarding mixed‑income projects. The lecture concluded that bold public investment, institutional reform, and a justice‑oriented framework are required to secure decent, affordable homes for low‑income, middle‑income, and senior households alike, offering a roadmap for policymakers, developers, and advocates seeking to reshape the housing safety net.

Original Description

In the 25th Annual John T. Dunlop Lecture , presented by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies , Kenzie Bok , CEO of the Boston Housing Authority and former Boston City Councilor, will bring together her experiences as a pioneering public housing administrator and intellectual historian to explore the past, present, and future of public housing in the United States. She will discuss how justice, fairness, and the role of government have shaped public housing, and how these ideas must evolve to meet today’s interconnected challenges of affordability, climate change, and inequality.

Following the lecture, Chris Herbert , Managing Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies, will moderate a conversation with Bok and Bernardo Zacka , an associate professor of political science at MIT, whose interests include the moral dilemmas that public service workers encounter when enacting public policy and how the architecture of welfare offices can shape interactions with citizens.

Speaker:

Kenzie Bok is the administrator and CEO of the Boston Housing Authority (BHA), which oversees approximately 10,000 affordable rental units in 56 developments and administers nearly 15,000 rental vouchers. Under her leadership, the BHA has become a national leader in decarbonizing public housing, renovating aging units, and expanding the supply of affordable homes, advancing mixed-income development on public land. Bok has served two terms on Boston City Council, where she led efforts to increase funding for rental vouchers and affordable homeownership programs. She also co-authored Boston’s groundbreaking Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing zoning amendment, helped create a green jobs program, and spearheaded the appropriation process for the city’s American Rescue Plan funds, which provided over $250 million for affordable housing. Her leadership is informed by her training as a historian. She received an MPhil and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and a BA from Harvard and has served as a lecturer at Harvard.

00:00 Welcome by Dan D'Oca

02:31 Introduction by Chris Herbert

07:30 Lecture by Kenzie Bok

56:52 Response by Bernardo Zacka

01:08:24 Discussion and Q+A