Moreau named new director of housing agency
WOONSOCKET – It’s official: Former Acting Director of the Woonsocket Housing Authority Robert Moreau is now the permanent executive director.
The WHA’s Board of Commissioners voted 6-1 to appoint the 10-year employee of the housing agency as its executive director on Jan. 31, said Chairman Marc Dubois.
“Everybody thought Bob Moreau had just done a terrific job since he’d been in that position since June,” said Dubois. “The morale among the employees there has been great.”
Most of the WHA’s roughly 50 employees were present at the agency’s 679 Social St. headquarters for the vote, applauding after it was taken, said Dubois. The lone dissenter was the WHA’s newest member, Steve D’Agostino – also the city’s public works director. Dubois said D’Agostino expressed support for Moreau, but objected to the term of his $122,000-a-year contract, in effect for three years. He advocated for two.
Reached by phone, Moreau said he’s honored by the commissioners’ vote of confidence and pleased to
have the job, but he’s happiest for the employees.
“The employees just wanted some leadership stability,” said Moreau. “I’m happy for the housing authority to have that stability at the top.”
A retired policeman, Moreau, 56, worked for the Woonsocket Police Department for 24 years before he joined the WHA as head of security in 2009. He had served as assistant director for about four years before he became acting director. Moreau also served on the City Council for five years – including a stint as president, and before that, 10 years on the Zoning Board of Review. He has run both of Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt’s re-election campaigns.
While many are familiar with Moreau as a political figure or a policeman, his role as a boxing mentor to young people is probably less well-known. Moreau has been a volunteer trainer for the boxing program at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northern Rhode Island for 11 years. He can be found at the Kendrick Avenue facility “almost every night,” he says, teaching 15-20 kids how to box at any given time.
His promotion brings to a conclusion a period of controversy and transition at the WHA that began when his predecessor, Christine O’Connor, was placed on paid leave for cause that has never been fully explained. The WHA hired an outside
legal counsel to conduct an investigation, but neither he nor the commissioners would say why. At the same time, commissioners acknowledged that the federal agency from which the WHA receives most of its funding, HUD, had initiated a financial audit of the WHA through its Office of Inspector General.
The audit is ongoing, but when the commissioners accepted O’Connor’s resignation on Dec. 31, neither her lawyer nor the WHA’s would elaborate on the terms. Both parties said they had signed a non-disclosure agreement.
Moreau is the fourth director of the WHA since mid-2014.
As the helmsman of the WHA, Moreau said his
goals are to usher in a new era of workplace harmony and provide tenants with new opportunities to become healthier and more socially engaged.
“I just want to make it a place where people don’t mind coming to work every day,” he said.
Moreau said he is exploring ways of getting tenants of the housing authority, particularly its sizable population of senior citizens, to be more physically active. He wants to bring exercise classes to the high-rises, including something called “chair yoga,” developed for individuals with limited mobility and balance.
During the summertime, he’d also like to have cookouts in a public park where tenants and staff could mingle.
“That’s one of the things I’m particularly looking forward to doing,” said Moreau.
The WHA controls some 1,200 housing units for low-income residents, the elderly and the disabled. About half are in four highrise buildings – St. Germain Manor, Crepeau Court, Parkview Manor and Kennedy Manor, while the balance are located in two tractstyle housing complexes – Veterans Memorial Family Housing Development, on the west side of the city, and Morin Heights Boulevard Family Housing Development on the east.