Irony abounds in the Boston Housing Authority.

In a year when the City Council and the mayor are trying to one-up each other in money for ``affordable'' housing, the BHA, responsible for housing the poorest of Boston's poor, is largely ignored.

In a city where landlords are aggressively prosecuted for substandard housing, the worst landlord with some of the shoddiest housing is the government.

And in a political environment where tenant activists routinely demonize private landlords, the BHA, at long last, is attempting to reverse decades of neglect by trying to act, of all things, like a private landlord itself.

The BHA owns 64 developments housing 27,000 people, 5 percent of the city's population. While the authority has been working hard to improve its housing stock - Fairmount in Hyde Park has been a notable success - much of it is still in appalling shape.

Many of the complexes have never been renovated. Some still have the original equipment from when they were built in the 1940s. Buildings are not handicapped accessible. Roofs leak, windows don't work, paint is peeling, heat tends to fail on the coldest days, lights are out and the plumbing is broken. Maintenance is irregular. Trash is often not picked up. Routine things like sweeping, snow removal and road repairs occur infrequently.

The last time someone took a comprehensive look at BHA's housing stock was six years ago. The estimate then was that $1.5 billion was needed to bring the projects up to today's building codes. Right now, the city receives about $37 million a year from the state and federal government for capital improvements. At that rate, the BHA projects  will be up to code in ... 41 years.

It's not a good situation, a fact BHA Director Sandy Henriquez freely acknowledges. Four years into her term, she has launched an effort, billed as ``BHA 2001,'' to remake public housing in Boston.

Henriquez's novel premise is that public housing should be run the same way as private housing. Henriquez knows of what she speaks. She came to the job having spent much of her working life managing rental housing for private management companies.

Good property management companies, says Henriquez, are decentralized, relying upon strong on-site managers to run each development. They think of residents as customers. They hold managers accountable for results and expect them to put in place systems that ensure that everyday services are reliably delivered to
each resident. The best companies reward creativity and innovation.

That, of course, is not the way the public sector likes to work. It is most certainly not the way the hidebound BHA has functioned. Indeed, the authority is like a photo-negative of what a good management company should be. It has centralized virtually all decision-making. Residents aren't thought of as customers; more often, they're just ignored. No systems are in place and managers are not held accountable. Innovation is discouraged.

Changing the BHA will require a ``paradigm shift,'' Henriquez admits. One sign of her zeal for reform is this: today, 220 employees work at the authority's Chauncy Street headquarters. Henriquez figures that, if her efforts are successful, over half of those employees will end up working in the developments, not downtown.

Henriquez's plans are ambitious, and like many ambitious plans, they face enormous obstacles.

No organization likes to change, and the notion of working in the field instead of downtown will be anathema to some employees. Moreover, the BHA has a sorry history. The residents it houses distrust it. Having heard promises of reform before, they are now cynical about the agency. Politicians distrust it as well. ``I never believe anything the BHA says,'' said one city councilor at a recent hearing at City Hall.

On top of that, the agency needs money. Right now, for example, about 900 BHA units are vacant because they require capital improvements to be made habitable. The authority is having a difficult time finding the money.

Meanwhile, city politicians are trumpeting that they will put $20 million to $30 million in new money in the budget this year for ``affordable housing.'' But when politicians speak of affordable housing, they usually mean lower-cost housing for middle-income people, those making from 80 percent to 120 percent of median income.

Those aren't Henriquez's customers. The residents of BHA housing make well under 80 percent of mean income. The new money won't be coming to them.

Henriquez knows the odds of success are low. But, she has little choice but to try. Housing the poor, providing them with a decent life, and perhaps creating the conditions that allow them and their children to escape poverty is, some would say, God's work. Still, Henriquez asks, ``Why does God have to make it so hard?''

Tom Keane writes weekly for the Boston Herald. He can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.