The new chief executive officer of the 79-year-old Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority is scheduled to arrive Monday, March 25, to take charge of the independent agency that manages more the 4,000 public housing units.

Damon E. Duncan, previously head of the housing authority in Elgin, Ill., since 2012, is a housing veteran who is expected to continue RRHA’s efforts to transform its holdings into housing voucher operations operated by private entities as he did in the community located 35 miles northwest of Chicago.

He will take over from Orlando C. Artze, who has served as interim CEO since the resignation of T.K. Somanath 13 months ago.

Mr. Duncan, who will be paid $200,000 a year, will manage an authority that has more than 300 employees, operates on a budget of around $70 million a year and serves more than 15,000 adults and children through the apartments it manages and in the housing vouchers it currently provides.

Mr. Duncan arrives as RRHA struggles to maintain its existing units with shrinking federal dollars. Heating has been a major challenge this winter, and currently up to 20 families are living without heat or only partial heat, with only space heaters for warmth.

He also will face an uproar from Jackson Ward, where many residents are upset about RRHA’s efforts to bring an apartment complex with 200 more units of affordable housing to vacant land in the 700 block of North 2nd Street after earlier promising that it would limit the development to 63 units, along with a hotel and retail space.

Mr. Duncan also arrives as RRHA moves forward with plans to provide a major equity stake in many of its senior apartments to a private company that would renovate and manage the hundreds of units involved.

RRHA Commissioner Samuel Young Jr., who led the RRHA board’s search, said Mr. Duncan has worked on revitalizing and transforming public housing during his career and will help RRHA rev up its efforts to revitalize and revamp public housing.

During his career, Mr. Duncan worked on Detroit’s HOPE VI program to turn public housing into mixed-income communities and also spent seven years working with other housing authorities as a consultant before joining the Elgin authority.