Longtime housing administrator Keith Pettigrew was appointed on Wednesday to take the helm of the D.C. Housing Authority, amid a worsening housing crisis and ballooning rates of homelessness across the region.

Pettigrew, a D.C. native who currently runs the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority and says he grew up in the District’s public housing, will step into the role Nov. 1.

The board overseeing D.C.’s public housing agency unanimously confirmed Pettigrew’s appointment on Wednesday — just under two months after his predecessor, Brenda Donald, stepped down — citing his career in public housing and knowledge of the city as key assets.

“Returning to lead DCHA, the housing authority in which I grew up, is both the culmination of my professional career and a very personal milestone,” Pettigrew said in a statement released Wednesday by the agency.

Raymond Skinner, chairman of DCHA’s board of commissioners, said at Wednesday’s meeting that the board received about 50 applications for the position, ultimately winnowing the field down to two candidates: Pettigrew and current interim director Dorian Jenkins. “[Pettigrew] is really a product of D.C., and I think that made the difference” in who the board ultimately nominated, Skinner said.

Pettigrew was raised in D.C., attending Eastern High School — later receiving degrees from George Washington University, according to the statement. He also lived in Barry Farm, a public housing complex in Ward 8 now under redevelopment. In 2000, Pettigrew went on to serve on a board that oversaw the D.C. Housing Authority as it worked to exit federal receivership, and in 2017 he became the executive director of the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

Pettigrew’s appointment comes at an inflection point for DCHA: He will adopt an agency in transition, as it grapples with the aftermath of an audit from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development that required it to correct or address more than 100 findings. Among other items, DCHA is in the midst of recalibrating its tool to calculate how much it should pay for housing vouchers; managing the redevelopment of multiple public housing complexes; attempting to boost its public housing occupancy rate and reconfiguring its waiting list; and executing a plan to drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to respond to emergency work orders.

Despite those challenges, perhaps the biggest obstacle Pettigrew will face is garnering the trust of the roughly 30,000 households that DCHA serves: the agency has been a revolving door of top executives over the last five years, and residents consistently report feeling rebuffed, ignored, and minimized by the staff responsible for managing their cases.

Those feelings, residents and their legal representatives have said, were exacerbated by the nomination of Pettigrew’s predecessor, Brenda Donald, who had never before worked in housing development or administration. Donald also tangled with the D.C. Council this year over her receipt of a more than $41,000 bonus, whose payment At-Large Councilmember Robert White called “likely illegal.”

“I know we as a board hear a lot of complaints about responsiveness,” Skinner said Wednesday in response to testimony from Daniel del Pielago, a longtime advocate for public housing residents through the organizing group EmpowerDC. Del Pielago noted that some Garfield Terrace residents have been frustrated by a lack of communication from DCHA staff amid reconstruction of the property. “I want to just tee that up again and make sure staff hears that again, that we need to be more responsive,” Skinner said.

Although Donald said she would lead the agency through necessary reforms, she departed months before her two-year contract was set to expire, and before HUD signed off on all of the changes she initiated at the agency. Most significantly, HUD has initiated a review of all payments DCHA has made through its Housing Choice Voucher Program dating back to 2018, Skinner said on Wednesday, where it will attempt to determine to what extent DCHA has overpaid for rents in some neighborhoods.

HUD has also yet to announce whether it will require the DC Housing Authority to pay back any of the funds it likely overspent on vouchers through that program, which are paid with federal funds.