Columbus Georgia (GA) Housing Authority
|
|
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WEBSITE IS A WORK-IN-PROGRESS!
If you are looking for the "official" website of The Housing Authority of Columbus GA (HACG), visit columbushousing.org. I have taken the initiative to launch an unofficial informational website for local landlords and property managers. This website is largely focused on our local (Columbus, GA) PHA implementation of Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program. The non-profit corporation which operates The Housing Authority of Columbus GA appears to be Columbus Housing Development Corporation formed in 1978. However, closely related companies formed in 1982 include:
All these corporations have the same corporate officers:
Related limited partnerships include:
Organizational Structure & Chain of CommandI was anonymously sent some information relating to the HACG chain of command and organizational chart. It appears to be reasonably accurate and authentic of what I have researched and learned thus far. Known HACG employees of significance include:
As far as I know, Executive Director Len Williams reports to the Board of Commissioners. The Board of Commissioners are appointed by the Mayor to some unknown term (3-years?) Bird's Eye View of Management StaffI have been informed that there are a number of management staff that will be retiring within the next year or two. Their names are currently being withheld until the confirmation of a few facts. This is strictly my opinion here. There are some interesting personal stories that have surfaced of some of staff and employees which are rather amusing and fascinating in light of their positions with HACG and the jobs they are supposed to do and the rules they impose on others. Let's just say, some people do not work as hard as they lead others to believe, not as conscientious as they should be, or as upfront as they should be about their personal agendas. Some are seemingly hypocritical. Those folks know who they are. I have no desire to release such information unless they give me a good reason to. Board of CommissionersKnown members of the HACG Board of Commissioners include:
Monthly Board of Commissioners MeetingOn the 3rd Wednesday of every month at 10:00am, Executive Director Len Williams and members of his senior staff meet with the Board of Commissioners to discuss various issues and pass various motions. Although technically open to the public, this monthly meeting with the Board of Commissioners is not publicized and borders on secretive that this meeting even exists at all. The only reason I now know about this meeting is that an informed source anonymously contacted me through this website and has provided me some interesting information that I am studying. I can assure you no HACG employee at any level ever volunteered that this important meeting even existed despite my various attempts to find out more information about HACG. While I cannot prove this, I would go so far as to say that they would be quite content if no "outsiders" ever attended this meeting. I have been informed by a reliable source that nearly no "outsider" ever attends this meeting. I have been informed by a reliable source that this monthly meeting is mandated by the Mayor and/or the City. The current seating is so limited and the size of the room in which this meeting is held is so small, that if only a half-dozen "outsiders" attended the meeting, there would be no seats left. The reason for this is that several members of the HACG staff take up a number of available "audience" seats themselves. As an "outsider" attending the meeting, I felt that the HACG staff were cautiously friendly and cautiously respectful of the "outsiders" there. They seemed quite curious as to where us "outsiders" came from and how we heard about the meeting to begin with. Ironically, it seems that their apparent secretiveness about this meeting is the very reason I found out about it to begin with! I was specifically informed about this (which I consequently followed up with phone calls to the HACG office). I was also highly encouraged to attend this meeting to see for myself what happens at the executive level. In atttendance at these meetings is Commission Attorney James Clark. I do not yet know which law firm he is affiliated with or if he is a sole practitioner. Ben Wright, a reporter from the Ledger-Enquirer, occasionally attends this meeting to keep up with the latest developments at HACG. I was told that Ed Harbison (Georgia State Senator, District 15) occasionally attends the meeting. The Clerk of Council on the 6th floor of the Consolidated Columbus Government Center keeps a copy of the monthly minutes of every meeting on file. However, it is only a brief summary of the motions and decisions that occurred, not the very significant and substantial supporting documentation behind it. Susan McGuire appears to be the person who keeps earlier meeting information packets. These are NOT accessible at the Clerk of Council office.
The Main Office of HACG is: 1000 Wynnton Rd. Columbus GA 31906 The Section 8 Office is located at: 1180 Martin Luther King Blvd. Columbus GA 31906 Known HACG Housing Projects & Communities
2009 HACG Goals & Objectives - I have not done an in-depth reading or analysis of this document yet but it is here for public viewing. HUD Agency Plans for Columbus GA HUD Housing Authority Profiles- Search on Georgia, then GA004, Columbus HA Statement of Policies (To be formally requested again.) Administrative Policies (To be formally requested again.) Office of Housing Choice Vouchers - The main section on HUD dealing with the Voucher Program. This program falls under the Public & Indian Housing Division. Quality Assurance Division - The Quality Assurance Division is responsible for implementing all activities related to improving the quality of operation of the assigned voucher programs at the Department and the public housing agencies (PHA). HUD Georgia Housing Authorities on the Web - (Columbus GA has no website!) HUD Approved Agency Plans - Agency Plans for each PHA.
HUD Atlanta Regional Office Contact Information
|
Gate-Keeping MentalityThere is also a lot of the gate-keeping mentality going on within HACG. It is not just a minor case of it, it is THICK of it. It seems to happen at all levels even for lower-level managers. The most infamous gate-keeping scheme is the one that exists for Executive Director Len Williams. I was directly refused his email address by Carolyn LaValley and I was provided only a FAX number or mailing address. As an Executive Director, Len will not likely get his own fax or open his own mail. However, what I do see is his staff filtering any material they do not want Len to see. I have also been informed that Susan McGuire, as Executive Assistant, does a large amount of that. To be fair though, it is most Executive Assistant's job to filter stuff. But they should be smart enough to know which ones should be let through. The thing the staff does not know is the more they "gate-keep", the greater the motivation I (and others) have to push through because we want to be heard but more importantly, some solutions and answers to exisiting issues. If they had not tried to "gate-keep" me so hard, this entire website would have not been launched and certainly not all the extensive research and information I have here. In any case, for me personally, I reached my goal. I know how to reach Len Williams and the Board of Commissioners directly if I need to air out any issues or concerns. I also know where the Mayor's office is on the 6th Floor of the Consolidated Columbus Government Center. And of course, having this website which has great Google visibility and placement. Lack of Accountability & TransparencyHACG is a non-profit corporation using largely public and federal funds for its operation. And yet, they lack accountability and transparency. They are very guarded in even providing basic information such as providing an employee directory of who does what and how to contact them. That is simply unreasonable. HUD itself is very transparent and accessible. They provide an open list of the chain of command, organizational directory, regional offices, and an employee directory to anyone who wants to know. Because there is so little publicly accessible information on the HACG without some deeper investigating as I have done, there is a lack of accountability and transparency of HACG to the Columbus GA community and its citizens. As I have been told by a HUD employee, I am a taxpayer. Even if I was not working with HACG, I have a right to know what they are doing with our taxpayer dollars. Most people do not know what HACG is supposed to do so it is hard to hold them accountable to rules that only they know about and publish internally. I think they need to follow the excellent example of The Housing Authority of the County of Riverside and provide more information to the public and especially to the landlords. Where is the Rulebook?The inspectors and Bob Wade frequently quote that "HUD says this, HUD says that, it is HUD rules". What they don't tell you, that I found out the hard way, is that every Public Housing Authority (PHA) has it own set of rules as long as they do not fall below the minimum standards establshed by HUD's Housing Choice Voucher Guidebook. And so you can quote the HUD's Housing Choice Voucher Guidebook, then they will turn around and say we have our own local standards and rules we establish and follow. Well, that is quite misleading especially when no landlord I know can get a copy of this "rulebook". There is no website from which you can download it . And when I brought it up, they say I can pay for the photocopy of this Administrative Policy. I have confirmed that their rulebook was not done on the old typewriter. This means it is stored in some electronic word processing format like Microsoft Word. And almost any document can be converted to PDF format which can be either be emailed or downloaded. Basically, almost every landlord working with HACG are being held accountable to obscure rules they do not easily make accessible even when you ask for it! The whole idea that every landlord has to go pay for a copy of a rulebook they are supposed to be following is insulting. In this day and age, using PDFs to disseminate information is the way to go. HUD does it. And other PHA's do it. A fine example of an Internet-savvy PHA is The Housing Authority of the County of Riverside. Under their Policies and Regulations, they have clearly provided the following information:
This is a PHA that is open and transparent. Before this website was launched, there is little or no electronic information you can find on HACG. Rating the Housing InspectorsThere are currently 3 housing inspectors: Scott Johnson, John Casteel, and Angela Suggs. Section 8 Coordinator, Bob Wade, occasionally assists and fills in for the other inspectors during overload times or when they are on vacation. I have personally met and worked with all four of these individuals. As a whole, I have found all three inspectors to be competent, hard-working, professional, respectful, and personable. Naturally, all three have somewhat different personalities and dispositions but I have been pleasantly surprised by their ongoing professionalism even during times of extreme stress. I have to give credit where credit is due. The HACG did a good job when they hired these individuals. My biggest gripe thus far has been with John Casteel during which he did not return my or my business partner's phone calls after an entire week of trying to get a callback. As I have said, leaving a message is better than silence. Most annoying is that John never apologized for it. He simply said he was overloaded with inspections. I was eventually forced to escalate the matter to Bob Wade who did a much better job responding to us on the matter. Having said that, it is a rare occurrence of this kind of lapse in communication. Under normal circumstances, I do not believe it would have happened. If I had to choose the inspector who provides the best overall customer service, I would nominate Scott Johnson. Scott is pleasant and friendly. Scott takes the time to explain and train newer landlords of what the inspectors look for. Scott also does a great job in replying to emails and returning our phone calls. His being on the "front lines" is a definite asset for client and landlord relations. My relationship with Bob Wade has recently been met with tension. Although Bob is generally professional, respectful, responsive, and knowledgeable, I occasionally find him rigid in his thinking and personality. He also does not always listen well to what is being said to him because he takes a very narrow view of his job. I have on occasion find him patronizing. I do not know if he does this intentionally or simply because he deals with so many people and complaints on a weekly basis. Most recently, I have found Bob to be unresponsive and uncooperative on certain matters which has forced me to escalate matters to the Atlanta regional office of HUD and Len Williams, Executive Director. I also found some information Bob told me in the past to be inconsistent with recent information I uncovered. I am hoping that we can move past our disagreements and resume a more cordial and better working relationship. Rating the Case WorkersI do not interact as much with the case workers (who interact with the client/tenants) as much as the inspectors. On the positive side, I can say that the case workers I have interacted with (as a whole) are generally polite and respectful. But I can almost unilaterally say, they need a lot of improvement on returning phone calls to landlords. It is not uncommon to wait 3-4 days for a phone call. When you consider there are 5 working days in a standard work week, the wait is far too long. I also find the case worker attitudes largely passive and unsympathetic to the plight of ongoing maintenance costs and issues all landlords go through. I think they spend so much more time working with the clients/tenants than the landlords that they are slighly biased towards them. Thus far, it has not been a tremendous problem for us because we have largely been self-sufficient but if a serious tenant matter arose where we needed their assistance, I don't have the confidence they have will or resolve to assist and support landlords. I have been told that case workers also report to Bob Wade, Section 8 Coordinator. Definition of AbatementThe threat of abatement is a recurring financial punishment theme in working with the HACG. They repeatedly hold it over the landlord's heads to great effect and yet you cannot easily find their definition of "abatement" in writing. I have actually done deep Google searches on the Internet of the word "abatement" as it pertains to the Section 8 Voucher system. Surprisingly, I could not find a clear, written definition anywhere! I actually had to speak to a few knowledgable people and point blank ask them to explain it to me in simple terms I can understand. Please understand that abatement is not a hard concept to understand but it has simply not been put in writing for public view! As a landlord, if you do not meet HAOCG requirements during re-inspections no matter the reason, an abatement is the financial punishment exacted upon a landlord. Outside of the Section 8 Voucher program, most states do not allow tenants to withhold rent payments even if the landlord has not met maintanance and repair requirements. Tenants must pay their entire rent on a timely basis even if they have a grievance with their landlord on repair and maintenance issues. Any grievances by tenants must be taken to court where the judge rules on whether the Landlord has been truly irresponsible. To be fair, there are many bad landlords out there. But we are not those people, we take great offense at the notion of being abated on the houses we put on the program. The definition of "abatement" is that the HA can withhold rent payments until you make the repairs and mainteance they deem necessary AND you will not retroactively get any rent money for the time lost. In other words, if you are placed on abatement status and it takes you two weeks to correct the matter, the tenant essentially got to stay in your property for free for nearly half the month! So, you don't get your rent money to pay your mortgage or to pay for repairs or maintenance. And when you finally do get it done, you only get paid from the time you completed the repairs. In the meantime, your tenant gets to stay for free! Most don't pay much or any rent to begin with and then the HA says you either take it or leave it. Another thing I found out which no one at the HACG willingly tells you, is that they actually have discretion whether they will abate you or not. They also have discretion of HOW MUCH they will abate. But they will blame it on HUD rules. And yet, PHA's have the freedom and discretion to adapt the HUD rules as long as they don't fall short of their standard. I discussed this with Bob Wade and he says he is unwilling to override his inspectors. It does not matter even if you have had a great record of passing inspections, you will be abated. And yet, if you happen to remember to put a request in writing, all is well. Well, where is the manual with all these little rules? And when you do finally meet the requirements to remove abatement status, there is no sense of urgency from the office to quickly reinstate you so that you get your check. When I brought this lack of urgency to reinstate up, I was told you get your money anyway. I replied, "Well, how would you feel if someone skipped one pay period of YOUR paycheck. You are going to get paid anyway." There seems to be this oblivousness that most rent payments are quickly redistributed in the form of mortgage payments and maintenance expenses. Timeliness ABSOLUTELY matters. As you can tell by the tone of this article, we had been abated for a week with almost no consideration of our past performance. I completely disagreed with this and I think most landlords would agree that abatement is overly harsh. Holding back payment until corrections are made but to entirely lose the rent money of the time lost is a serious issue for any landlord to consider. The Office CultureI feel it is important for every landlord to understand the "personality" and office culture of HACG. Every organization has its own personality and office culture depending on the internal policies they set to interact with their clients, vendors, and the general public. I have found the office culture of HACG largely insulated and I believe they do it intentionally because of the onslaught of people they serve. They work in a self-created cocoon and do not generally make it easy for "outsiders" to get in. If you do not know someone, you will be forced into a difficult queue. Many phone calls are funneled through a receptionist. They have no internal rules or policies that I know of regarding returning phone calls. I gently brought the subject up at a recent landlord meeting about what is a "reasonable" turnaround time for a return phone call. I proposed that adopting an informal 48-hour courtesy return phone call might help in their landlord relations. But my suggestion did not seem welcome because it seems they do not like the idea of someone else holding them accountable to a customer service standard. And yet, they have no problems holding landlords fully accountable for slow responsiveness. There is clearly a sense of self-protectiveness within the organization. They often operate from the position of defensiveness even when you are not attacking them. Change seems to come slow within the HACG. I have seen landlords practically beg at the landlord meetings for change but it is always met with "we are understaffed and underfunded". And yet, to this day after years of watching and waiting, they have no website or other forms of automation to make life easier for everyone. Until recently, I have never much had to go beyond speaking with the case workers, inspectors, and very occasionally the Section 8 Coordinator at the HACG. It is surprisingly difficult to get a complete list of names, numbers, and email addresses of people you would want to contact. The information I have thus far has been assembled by me. And even then, there are contact names that I feel I should have but don't have. The 3 inspectors are generally friendly and accessible. They make their business cards available to any landlord that asks for one. But because the inspectors are on the road most of their time doing inspections, you will almost never get them when you call their office. You can leave voice messages or emails and they will generally return your call albeit in an inconsistent fashion. Bob Wade, Section 8 Coordinator, has generally done a reasonable job in making himself accessible via email and returning phone calls. I find most of the case workers to be inaccessible. They do not give out their email addresses and they do not return calls on a timely basis. They need a LOT of improvement in returning landlord calls. Bob supposedly reports to Carolyn LaValley, Director of Housing. I have spoken with her and emailed her a couple of times. Although polite, my limited interactions with Carolyn always seems rushed. In fact, I told her once during one of my conversations that I did not want her to rush me off the phone. I was obviously not making a social call and I wanted my issues heard and complaints resolved. Because I sensed a lack of responsiveness or interest in my prior communications with her, I asked for Executive Director, Len William's email address. After asking twice, she said she was not allowed to give that email address. However, I did receive the phone number to his office and fax. I think that it is far more intrusive for me to call his office or fax to him than if I sent him an email. |
©
2009-2011 ColumbusGAHousing.com. All Rights Reserved. |