After more than a year of leadership turnover at the Little Rock housing authority, the agency's board has settled on a five-year plan that includes creation of new staff positions, higher standards for housing quality and the final touches on the renovation of its public housing towers.
Metropolitan Housing Alliance commissioners outlined the plan during its "board retreat" Dec. 6 and 7, according to meeting documents provided to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. The two-day annual retreats will be mandatory for the next three years in efforts to improve trust and communication among staff and board members, according to retreat documents.
The agency is the largest provider of rental subsidies in Little Rock and is set to administer 2,083 Section 8 vouchers in 2020. Section 8 vouchers allow residents to choose a place to live, and the agency pays for portions of their rents depending on income.
The board developed the plan after 13 months of staff resignations, a failed search for an executive director and a change in board leadership. In October, commissioners appointed then-Deputy Director Anthony Snell as executive director.
In November 2018, then-Director Rodney Forte resigned his post, and the board pushed him out weeks before his requested final day. It then appointed Marshall Nash, the former director of administrative and legal services, as interim director. Nash resigned abruptly in April in the middle of a search for a new executive director.
Snell was appointed interim director a few days after Nash's resignation, and commissioners announced in June that they would begin contract negotiations with Nadine Jarmon of Deerfield Beach, Fla. She didn't accept the job, and the board appointed Snell to the top administrative post.
Many of the board's discussions regarding the search for a new director were shielded from the public because of private meetings that lasted for hours. After the meetings, Mayor Frank Scott Jr. announced on Twitter that he'd instructed City Attorney Tom Carpenter to conduct a training on the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act with board members.
The act gives the public access to documents, communications and other information from governing bodies, requires public notice of meetings and mandates that the public be allowed to attend meetings of governing bodies, with a few exceptions for private meetings, called executive sessions.
Carpenter conducted the board's training during its early December retreat, according to documents.
Since Snell was appointed executive director, he has served in that role without the assistance of any deputies. Forte had two, one of whom Nash fired soon after Forte left.
During their final meeting of the year on Thursday, commissioners agreed that Snell should aim to hire someone for the position of senior director of operations within 60 days. The senior director will report directly to the executive director, and four other program directors will report to the senior director, according to an agency organizational chart.
The agency will also hire an employee to head up information technology issues in 2020. Previously, the agency contracted with Advance Networking Services for its technology needs. It spent $15,675 in 2019 for that service.
Technology improvements have long been an interest of board Chairman Kenyon Lowe, who also heads up the technology committee.
The agency has developed a new internet and digital device usage policy for employees and an information technology disaster recovery plan to ensure that passwords, data and important documents are backed up. A resolution approving the addition of digital device usage policies, which was pulled from the agenda of the last meeting, is waiting for board approval.
"It makes things better, it makes the information flow better," Lowe said of technology improvements.
The board voted to make Lowe board chairman in late October, replacing former Chairwoman Leta Anthony.
Monique Sanders, whose first meeting as a commissioner was November 2018, resigned from the board earlier this month. The board will select someone to replace Sanders, and that person will be subject to approval by the Little Rock Board of Directors.
HOUSING QUALITY
The five-year plan also includes an emphasis on high-quality housing for residents, saying that the agency will be an "active advocate for higher housing quality standards within our service area."
That means the agency will increase its housing standards beyond the minimum requirements set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Lowe said in an interview.
During the board's December meeting, Lowe referenced housing quality, saying some tenants had been living in unacceptable housing. He gave an example of sewage coming up in a bathtub.
"People deserve decent, affordable housing," he said in a later interview. "You're talking about human people, human lives here."
Snell said Lowe was referring to a specific instance in which the agency had to move a Section 8 tenant out of a property, and added, "that happens frequently within our program."
The five-year plan also calls for more efforts to communicate with local landlords, including the formation of a landlord advisory board and designating a staffer as "landlord liaison."
Snell said the agency has always had a liaison, although that person may have had a different title.
HOUSING TOWERS
The agency also celebrated this month the near-completion of construction on its three public housing towers through the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration program.
The program, which began under President Barack Obama's administration and has expanded during President Donald Trump's time in office, allows housing authorities to partner with private companies to revitalize aging housing.
It also switches the properties from public housing, where the housing authority serves as the landlord, to project-based Section 8, where tenants are given vouchers. A set percentage are given the option to take their vouchers to other properties if they choose, on a first-come, first-serve basis.
"It's addressing needs that have been ignored for many years," Lowe said of the program.
Snell said that finishing Rental Assistance Demonstration, or RAD, program conversions will be one of his top goals for 2020.
"I just want to stay right now focused on our primary goal at hand, which is bringing us to almost closure on the RAD conversion and then certainly looking at some other opportunities to build some new housing to meet the demands of the community," Snell said in an interview.
The towers -- Jesse Powell, Cumberland and Fred W. Parris -- joined the federal program in 2018. Cumberland and Parris are finished, and Powell should be done by the end of the year, officials said during the board's December meeting.
Construction was budgeted for about $22.4 million for all three towers, which have just over 600 units. Wisconsin-based Gorman & Co. has a contract with the Little Rock agency to renovate and manage the towers' daily operations.
The Powell tower as well as Madison Heights, Metropolitan Village and Cumberland Manor all launched homeless preferences through the federal program, said Jeannie Owens, the voucher program director in a previous interview.
Ending chronic homelessness is also included on the agency's five-year plan.
Lowe said this will be achieved primarily by increasing communication with local groups that are also providing housing.
The five-year plan includes seven general goals with 45 sub-goals. The major goals are: ending chronic homelessness; embracing high standards of ethics, management and accountability, promoting self-sufficiency and asset development of families and individuals, improving community quality of life and economic vitality, increasing assisted housing choices, improving the quality of assisted housing and improving operations.
"We are just excited about moving forward into the New Year, into the new decade," Snell told commissioners at the Dec. 19 meeting.
Information for this article was contributed by Eric Besson and Tony Holt of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 12/24/2019