Betsey Martens leaving Boulder Housing Partners after 31 years

BOULDER — Betsey Martens, executive director of Boulder Housing Partners, the city of Boulder’s housing authority, announced on Friday she will leave the organization she has been with for the past 31 years.

Martens plans to devote her time on scaling up Bringing School Home, a program that was started at BHP that helps children in families using Boulder’s public housing to do better at school. A goal is to implement the program across the country. The program is being developed in partnership with the I Have a Dream Foundation.

“We’re sorry to see Betsey leave, because she has done so much,” said Karen Klerman, chairwoman of the BPH’s board of commissioners. “But we’re eager to see what she does to enable public housing authorities to go beyond simply providing housing and instead to use housing as a springboard of opportunity for residents and the communities.”

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Martens was appointed to BHP’s board of commissioners in 1985. In 1997, she joined the staff, serving as deputy director, co-executive director and executive director for the last 20 years, making her the longest-serving executive director in BHP’s 50-year history.

“Betsey is a transformational leader,” Klerman said. “She has led our growth from a small and asset-focused housing authority into a large and trend-setting example for the country of what public and affordable housing can and should be like.”

Martens said “it’s the right time for a change. BHP is financially sound, operationally expanding, with a highly experienced staff and board.”

Martens is the immediate past president of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, the United States’ largest affordable-housing professional association, with 2,800 housing authorities and 17,000 individual members.