WILMINGTON — The Wilmington Housing Authority is about to undergo a transformation.
It comes on the heels of a mold crisis that destabilized – and nearly bankrupt – the organization. But that crisis brought in fresh new leadership, and CEO Tyrone Garrett has spent the past several years positioning WHA to remake its properties and create more affordable housing for those who need it in Wilmington. He’s taken back control from management companies, made financial moves to set up renovations and redevelopment, and has even repurchased properties on behalf of the organization.
All these changes are badly needed – residents often complain about deferred maintenance and the bureaucracy of indirect management. But the rapid pace of change has also been unnerving and hard to track.
Port City Daily and WHQR took a deep dive into all that’s happened so far, and what the agency has planned for the coming years.
Acquisitions and management takeovers
The Wilmington Housing Authority has made several headlines in the last few months over new property acquisitions, even as current residents complain of ongoing maintenance issues. The agency assures tenants improvements are coming with the four redevelopment and renovation projects slated to break ground in the next few years, though these cost millions of dollars and will take the better part of the next decade to complete.
In a recent interview with Port City Daily and WHQR, WHA Board Chair Jeff Hovis recognized the authority’s current multi-tasking approach is a “very aggressive stance,” but a necessary one.
“We have properties that we have just been putting money into to keep them in place — because, one, if they’re not in place, there’s nowhere for these people to move,” Hovis said, adding every new property acquisition provides room to relocate residents during renovations.
Still, the acquisitions come with their own set of problems.
In December, Port City Daily and WHQR reported six apartments in the housing authority’s portfolio were found to have open code violations, most involving mold and water leaks, dating back months.
It was later revealed WHA inherited the problem after taking over property management of New Brooklyn Homes, a housing development on Wilmington Northside where five of the violations were located. Though WHA owned New Brooklyn Homes and was technically still responsible for maintaining the property, it had been outsourcing the task to Excel Management, which has a history of troubled management, particularly at the neighboring Robert Taylor Homes.
Because housing authority projects usually involve financing from government sources and partnerships with developers, Hovis explained there are many facets to closing a deal on a property, property management being one.
“A lot of that can be determined by whoever the large investor is,” Hovis said.
Hovis went on: “It is so hard to tell someone, ‘Well, I have no control,’ but WHA is indicated as a 1% general partner.”
When WHA acquires property, it sometimes only gets a token stake in the deal just to maintain their involvement and assurance the property is dedicated to affordable housing.
Hovis added management negotiations can also depend on who is qualified to handle tax credit properties. Hovis said he didn’t believe WHA had enough staff with those qualifications when New Brooklyn Homes became part of its portfolio, thus necessitating Excel’s involvement.
According to Hovis, WHA has passed on opportunities to acquire other properties due to not having the financial means to manage it. Doing so isn’t a simple decision, as WHA wants to avoid giving up opportunities to keep a housing complex affordable, especially in the Wilmington area where average rents have increased by 45% since January 2017.
If WHA were to concede on the management, Hovis said there would have to be a stipulation where a management agent could be removed for cause.
“You have to go out and be multifaceted, you cannot just sit back and let a certain property go away that could be kept affordable,” Hovis said.
Still, the agency regularly fields complaints from residents, who see WHA add more housing to its portfolio and question why the agency doesn’t have the means to improve its long-standing properties.
A resident of Rankin Terrace (who asked to remain anonymous) said she’s been dealing with mold in her bathroom over the last couple of years. A maintenance team has been to the resident’s apartment multiple times, but the resident claims the mold was never treated fully and keeps returning.
At a Jan. 7 community meeting at Solomon Towers, several residents complained of maintenance issues going unaddressed or not adequately corrected. And WHQR has heard similar complaints from residents at Creekwood and Houston Moore.
CEO Garrett said at the same meeting he has only been leading WHA for three years while needed maintenance has been put off for much longer.
“If we do not do preventative maintenance over a period of time, you end up with buildings that have major issues and problems after 15 to 20 years — so that’s what we’re actually facing,” Garrett said, a point he’s made in response to other complaints about similar issues across WHA’s properties.
Covid pandemic begets a mold crisis
Hovis — who was a WHA commissioner in the 2010s before rejoining in 2022— said the agency under Garrett is working much more efficiently. He also conceded years of deferred maintenance under prior leadership and a major setback due to a mold crisis in 2022 act as a financial ball-and-chain for WHA.
The City of Wilmington asked Hovis to return as chair of the WHA board of commissioners in the midst of a crisis: More than 100 families were displaced by a metastasizing mold problem.
During the pandemic, inspections were put to a halt, and when the WHA started them again, the agency found dozens of apartments needed to be evacuated. Residents were placed in hotels and given per diems, which put WHA in a terrible financial position even as management failed to repair the damaged units and place families back in their homes.
Former CEO Katrina Redmon resigned in the midst of the crisis, leaving the struggling organization rudderless and hemorrhaging money. Between October of 2021 and May of 2022, the number of displaced families rose from 21 to more than 150. This is when Garrett came in.
“I commend Tyrone Garrett for not turning around and driving back to wherever he was driving from,” Hovis said. “Because we went from thinking, ‘You know what, we have about 90 to 120 days of funds’ to like, ‘I think we have nine days of funds.’ I mean, it was that bad.”
Garrett took the helm in the midst of that crisis, and sought help from the local government to cover the organization’s growing financial needs. He made the unpopular decision to cut per diems for families in half. But under his leadership, the housing authority finally saw the number of families in hotels decrease and eventually hit zero in spring of 2023.
At the time of the crisis, local leaders were focused on getting families help, and getting them back into their homes. And, while Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo said he’d like to see a post-mortem to determine who was responsible, that hasn’t happened since.
While there hasn’t been much accountability, Hovis said the crisis had several causes – and more than one responsible party.
“There was a combination of COVID, management, and board management. I believe that the board, the staff, and all bear – you know – were involved in it,” Hovis said.
Now, the agency is trying to look forward, though its assets are still extremely limited because of the impact of the mold crisis. That means WHA has begun to seek alternative funding mechanisms to address its maintenance needs.
That’s not just a problem in Wilmington; it’s a national crisis in HUD-funded housing authorities, Hovis said. “We think there’s almost $26 billion of deferred maintenance across the country and Housing Authority properties.”
Financing rehabilitation and redevelopment
The Wilmington Housing Authority has 15 properties across the city, only four of which have redevelopment projects ongoing — Jervay Place, Solomon Towers, Hillcrest and Houston Moore. However, this work will total upwards of $118 million.
The authority is managing the financing with a combination of various federal programs, like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) conversion program. Leaders at WHA hope the programs can help the authority repair and replace aging housing stock, as many WHA buildings were first constructed during WWII.
Both RAD conversion and LIHTC are complex financial instruments, but they make a housing authority’s job much easier, especially with repairing deferred maintenance.
LIHTC is a federal program administered by state housing agencies that helps build and renovate affordable housing. It allows developers (including the housing authority) to sell tax credits to investors in exchange for financing. That lowers the amount of debt a developer takes on when they build a project, and makes it easier for the developer to charge lower rents.
RAD authorizes the conversion of a property’s federal funding from one form to another, taking a property to project-based section 8 funding. It helps housing authorities by providing consistent, reliable and stable funding through HUD. RAD conversions supply more rent to housing authorities than previous models, so they can help WHA fund maintenance or rehabilitations on housing units.
Both programs are run through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, leaving WHA reliant on federal funding — which on top of being slow-moving, has now become less reliable with the Trump administration’s efforts to slash federal spending. The City of Wilmington does provide funding, even giving more to help WHA catch up during the mold crisis, but this only amounts to $2 million annually.
Hovis said continuing reliance on HUD was not sustainable.
“We really need to build up reserves, we really need to find other ways to earn non-federally dictated funds, we need to be more self-sufficient,” Hovis said.
He said WHA has been discussing fee-based services not restricted by HUD — such as for supportive services like financial counseling or childcare — to generate dollars for the general fund. WHA is also looking to get involved in market rate units and adding commercial components to its properties via partnerships with private companies.
“We don’t necessarily have to be the lead in that, but we can be a partner in that, and have the ability of utilizing our agency’s ability of getting other funds for some of these private entities,” Hovis said.
Even as WHA explores more projects, Hovis said he did not think the agency was overextending itself. Garrett explained as much to residents at a Jan. 7 community meeting at Solomon Towers:
“Our portfolio is increasing and our responsibility is increasing. That’s what we’re doing, at the same time, it’s really trying to lay the foundation to make sure that we improve the quality of life for the residents we do have currently,” he said.
The right to return
Redevelopments can be nerve-wracking for residents, particularly because trust has been broken for many of them after years of displacement due to the mold crisis. But Garrett made promises at the Jan. 7 meeting to try and calm the fears that a resident may end up on the street:
“One, residents always have the right to return. Two, we try to limit the relocation so that the relocation is a build-first, so that residents don’t have to move off-site and then move back. Three is that we maintain control of the property and control in terms of ownership and also the daily operational management. So those are the three pillars that we work off of,” Garrett said.
Taking over full control of properties, rehabbing properties needing repair, and demolishing and replacing ones in too poor of condition to be saved: That’s the general gameplan for WHA, but the devil is in the details. Here’s the current conditions and next steps for some of the most prominent WHA properties in Wilmington.
What’s next for Hillcrest
One of Wilmington Housing Authority’s oldest properties, Hillcrest’s redevelopment has been on the table for more than a decade.
Situated along Dawson Street between 13th and 16th streets, Hillcrest was originally built as temporary housing during World War II, so the concrete, one-story houses date back to the 1940s. Since its construction, the neighborhood has undergone few updates. Its aging infrastructure has seen problems with moisture, like mold, and issues with waterlines.
“In a nutshell … Hillcrest is obsolete, 80 years old, obsolete,” Garrett told Port City Daily in August. “Meaning it’s well past its life expectancy.”
Garrett explained, while the buildings and their materials are up to code, they are outdated. For instance, he said the water and sewage lines are likely made of clay, making them susceptible to moisture and prone to collapsing — and one did last fall.
Code enforcement records from the last year show three cases, one of which remains open. Filed on Nov. 15, 2024, the unresolved case involves a “black substance” on the bathroom wall and ceiling. The other cases, one of which involved mold, were fixed within two months.
After losing out on a funding opportunity in 2014, WHA announced last year it would rebuild the 251-unit Hillcrest complex in four phases, costing between $20 to $25 million. Though it won’t hear back on its tax applications until April or May— the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit would cover all but $5.7 million — WHA is moving forward now on its first phase of 84 units.
Hovis reported relocation of residents is underway; each tenant who chooses to will have the option to return to a new Hillcrest unit. Hovis was hopeful site work would begin in November with the new units coming online in 2027.
“Those 84 would be probably more of a senior building and will be an elevator building,” Hovis said. “We got to see some preliminary site plans of what they’re looking at, but they’re looking at a very mixed-use.”
Hillcrest presents the perfect opportunity to enact WHA’s vision of mixed-use developments. The long range vision for Hillcrest includes potentially 400 to 500 units and even retail. The board chair said the authority is working on amenities at Hillcrest that are also attractive to the outside community, while envisioning townhome units to be added at the back of the Dawson Street property.
“There’s so much stuff going on with Dawson Street, they’re doing some of the calming of Dawson Street so that helps our project,” Hovis said.
What’s next for Houston Moore
Similar to Hillcrest, the 150-unit Houston Moore is getting a phased remodel to add 50 more units, with WHA looking at potential commercial opportunities onsite.
“That one’s moving faster than we thought it would move,” Hovis said, noting a groundbreaking is set for 2026 or 2027.
He added the WHA team will hear back on Houston Moore’s tax credit application in March or April; the redevelopment is also utilizing the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to support families with incomes at or below 60% of the area’s median income.
WHA is working with the National Equity Fund, a national nonprofit syndicator of Low Income Housing Tax Credits. NEF will be investing $27.2 million into the project in anticipation of $3.1 million coming from tax credits.
Hovis said WHA owns the building beside the S. 13th Street property and discussions are being had about how to bring in a commercial component.
What’s next for Solomon Towers
Solomon Towers is set to undergo $30 million worth of renovations.
The first phase of an environmental study has been completed with the second on the way so Hovis said: “We had to push back the tax credit application on that.”
As for what will change, Solomon Towers will be modernized and has a goal provide additional amenities to the residents.
In the meantime, residents have expressed frustration with current conditions. One tenant, Leah Tate, had to deal with bed bugs for several months. She called local media outlets about it in November and Code Enforcement opened a case on her apartment in December of 2024. That case closed in late January.
Hovis said managing pests, such as bed bugs,can be a big problem. “What happens is, those are usually brought into a location and then they spread.”
He said tenants might bring in an infested used mattress or couch, then it becomes a problem not just in their apartment but for their neighbors, too.
But the problems aren’t limited to pests only.
At a Jan. 7 community meeting, one tenant complained about leaks from other apartments coming into her residence, and said she’d gone 10 years without maintenance.
“Even if we can only pay 30%, we still deserve to live decent,” she declared.
CEO Tyrone Garrett responded to her at the community meeting that, renovation is their way of catching up on deferred maintenance.
“That’s why we’re doing the RAD program, that’s exactly why we’re doing it,” he said. “That helps the Housing Authority refinance the building so that the capital improvements can be made. Just asking, just trying to do those switches, we only get $2 million a year in capital to cover all of our properties.”
Garrett added they’ll need to stick with Band-Aids in the meantime, until they can get funding from RAD and LIHTC to make substantial improvements.
When Solomon Towers does eventually go through its remodel and rehab, it will be floor-by-floor. According to Hovis, the project will be underway in 2026.
The past and future of Jervay Place
As previously reported by WHQR, WHA recently took over full control Jervay Place after many years of a deeply confusing shared ownership model. Hovis agreed, it’s been tough to understand the situation.
“Jervay has been one of those situations that, I swear, like no one’s understood for 20 years,” he said. “It is the most complicated and makes no sense.”
But here’s the gist: WHA owned the land under Jervay before Telesis Corporation built the complex. In 2002, the land was transferred from WHA to Telesis (operating through a limited partnership called “New Dawson”) for no cost, and Telesis took the lead in developing the property.
According to property records, WHA helped pay a portion of the development costs. In early 2019, Telesis founder and president Marilyn Melkonian (who passed away in February 2024) said her company owned 66 units and WHA owned 23.
At a community meeting for WHA, Garrett told residents the purchase of Jervay would help them address concerns they’ve heard from residents.
“It’s uncomfortable for us to have a project like the way it worked out with Jervay,” he said. “That was a project that had our name stamped on it but had no say in it, we didn’t control it … That’s uncomfortable.”
This purchase follows WHA’s goal of reasserting full management control over its housing stock in the city. In the process of negotiating the deal, WHA agreed to pay another $660,000 to Telesis Corp, and asked the City of Wilmington to lend them the money for it.
At the time, Garrett told City Council: “When we pick up those properties, we find out there’s a few invoices left in the drawer before us, and what we’ve been doing is trying to pay those that someone left for us.”
The city did agree to provide the loan and WHA is taking over ownership once the deal closes.
Hovis said the invoice in the drawer, in this case, was “a long term subsidy agreement that was there.”
“We just wanted to make that agreement closed and [was] sufficient so it meets HUD’s requirements,” Hovis said.
The goal is to close the deal without remaining questions, so “there’s no one who can come back and say, ‘Hey, you owe us this amount’ when we were going for a refinancing.”
As for what’s next, Hovis said the top priority will be demolishing the 18 condemned units that were wrecked during Hurricane Florence in 2018 and have been vacant ever since.
Afterward, the housing authority will begin a RAD conversion process for the property, Hovis said.
“There’s 82 units that are going to be in the RAD process. And that’s about an $88.5 million renovation process.”
The land where the 18 demolished units were will get rebuilt, and Hovis said WHA is hoping to replace them with 18 units or increase that number. Construction for that project should start in 2026 or 2027.
Garrett wrote in an email to WHQR the mold crisis did have a substantial impact on the organization’s ability to achieve its goals. But the acquisition of Jervay seems to be almost a turning point.
“Our opportunities for growth have been limited, but we have made progress as shown through the acquisition of Jervay Homes,” Garrett wrote. “With any business, the more cash on hand the more opportunities you can pursue to increase/develop additional units.”
New Brooklyn Homes and Robert Taylor Senior: a takeover and maintenance problems
New Brooklyn has had six code enforcement cases opened in the past year, four of were still open as of March 5. While there were no code enforcement issues at Robert R. Taylor Senior Homes since Excel stopped managing it, residents of the 192-unit senior housing complex went a week without consistent and clean running water there in January 2023.
The oldest case still open at New Brooklyn Homes was opened in May and still hasn’t closed.
The most common problems appear to be mold-related, often originating from leaks. One tenant, Rebah Lewis, says she hasn’t had any maintenance performed on her unit since the complaint was filed last summer.
“They come, they look and they don’t say anything,” Lewis said. “I literally just had the maintenance man come over here two weeks ago. He looked and he’s like, ‘That’s not my problem.’”
Lewis has a leak under her tub that has made the floor go soft, and the linoleum is starting to lift in the bathroom. In a tour of her apartment on Feb. 19, she also pointed out loose fixtures in bedrooms and bathrooms, which Code Enforcement ordered the landlord to fix back in September.
Lewis said she’s tried to move out of her apartment. “I went over there, signed a paper for a transfer, still nothing,” she said.
She’s frustrated with New Brooklyn Homes in particular.
“When I stayed at Creekwood, it was excellent, no problems. When I stayed in Hillcrest, I had three units out there. It was no problems,” she said.
Hovis says the housing authority will move people who are living in dangerous conditions and explained leadership at the organization was incredibly frustrated with management companies that didn’t follow through on necessary maintenance.
“There’s absolutely no excuse for not fixing things,” he said.
Hovis said it was frustrating to get blamed for neglect when the management company was failing to follow through on maintenance requests.
“So now, if there are our screw-ups, they’re ours, and then we have to be accountable to them, but we should be able to be accountable and take action right away, versus, like, having to go through a management agent,” he said.
As WHA financially recovers from the mold crisis several years ago, their budget for maintenance is incredibly limited.
“They have to go at it systematically,” he said, describing how WHA prioritizes cases. “No one’s problem is small, but some people’s problems are higher up on the list of having to get done first.”
Chief Code Enforcement Officer Brian Renner had previously struggled to get in communication with WHA regarding apartments in violation, according to internal city emails. Emails from Renner to Garrett went unanswered.
Asked about the status of the four cases that were open at New Brooklyn Apartments through February, Renner said: “Everything except [one case] is getting closed at New Brooklyn.” Those closed cases include Lewis’s case, mentioned above.
He noted there were a few minor maintenance issues, but they are being addressed with the property manager.
WHQR asked Garrett about the open cases at New Brooklyn.
“Those violations have been corrected, and we are awaiting a final clearance through the City’s code enforcement department,” he responded. “We have over 1,000 units under our umbrella and although we strive for perfection, we are not perfect. Unfortunately, and in this case a team member underperformed.”
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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