Jillian Standish (GSM’09) Wins Rappaport Public Policy Fellowship
GSM student is working in the state's Department of Housing and Community Development this summer
For a graduate student, Jillian Standish (GSM’09) has an unusual summer job: she is helping to redesign the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program, which offers rental subsidies to individuals and families and is administered by the state Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). Standish’s job is one of the rewards of a Rappaport Public Policy Fellowship, which each year gives 12 graduate students a $7,000 stipend and the chance to learn more about how public policy is implemented in Massachusetts. The fellowship is given by the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, which is located at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
“The rental voucher program is a tremendous resource for housing low-income families in the commonwealth,” says Standish, who earned an undergraduate degree at Bucknell University. “But it has not been used to its full potential, and DHCD is planning on redesigning it. I’ve been formulating a recommendation on this redesign by doing field interviews and surveys with all of the program’s stakeholders.”
In addition to working at the DHCD, Standish also meets weekly with the other 11 Public Policy Fellows, who are from Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Suffolk, and Tufts, and she meets occasionally with 12 Law Fellows from the Suffolk Law School.
“Both the Law and Public Policy Fellows are amazing groups of people,” Standish says. “All of the fellows are friendly, intelligent, creative, and driven, with really interesting and diverse backgrounds.”
When she graduates, says Standish, she hopes to find a job in Boston working in the field of housing and homelessness.
Davide Nardi can be reached at dnardi@bu.edu.
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