"We decided it would be great to bring in an officer to institutionalize the collaboration. An officer gives a person a greater voice in PBHA," Windt says. "It will bring housing and advocacy issues to cabinet meetings. There's a feeling that housing and advocacy are on the fringes of PBHA because it's swung so totally toward direct service. It's so important to think beyond the day to day."

Apart from the new officer's position and the new prison reform program, PBHA is now also a member of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization

(GBIO), a coalition of more than 90 Boston-area congregations and community groups that advocate for social action.

Trevor S. Cox `01-'02, PBHA president, encourages the proliferation of advocacy programs, which he says are a natural growth from direct service programs like after-school programs and the homeless shelter.

"We're seeing more and more programs with an advocacy bent. People are becoming more and more involved in the direct service aspect and this is just another way of getting at the root of the problem," he says. "As PBHA's become more and more involved in the direct service aspect, the underlying issues become more and more apparent."

Former PBHA president Natalie Guerrier `01 says she thinks the flexibility the PBHA officers' board has in creating new positions is a strength of the organization.

"I think [the new officer position] is great. The president and vice president are able to create the position as it makes sense for the organization. It does reflect a trend in greater interest in advocacy," she says. "I think that position could really be useful to get a voice on cabinet that isn't always heard. It could really be great to have more support for these students."

And Cox thinks that the recent large-scale advocacy at Harvard--the Mass. Hall sit-in and living wage rallies--highlighted the importance of all aspects of service for PBHA volunteers, not just direct activism.

"I think it [the sit-in] calls attention for the greater need for PBHA programs. Even as PSLM, one PBHA program, is tackling the problem on one front, there's still a great need for PBHA to keep on doing what it's doing."

Bringing Home The Dough

Onstage at the "BJ Show," a student-run variety show held last month, Professor Robert Kirshner joked that it was a "fun-raiser" not a fundraiser for PBHA. And while Bob Saget's scatological humor earned more than $3,000 for PBHA, the annual operating budget and centennial campaign both look healthy at the end of this year thanks to more serious ventures in corporate sponsorship and alumni fund-raising efforts.

PBHA Vice President Andrew Park `01-'02 worked with a recent PBHA alumna at Goldman Sachs (GS) to put together a successful bid for corporate sponsorship from the investment banking company.

"It started as a corporate appeal initiative especially since we wanted to try and build our endowment," Park says. "We created the scholars program that's a competitive program, so the individual camps are applying for funding."

Goldman Sachs is giving $10,000, which PBHA will use to fund 10 Summer Urban Program counselor positions.