The new Little Rock Housing Authority board members are visiting three downtown residential towers

Board members and staff from the Little Rock housing association on Wednesday visited three high-rise towers that were originally built as public housing and are now overseen by a private company.

During the visit, board members who recently joined the panel got a look at the affordable rental properties, which total hundreds of units.

The Housing Authority of Little Rock does business as the Metropolitan Housing Alliance and is governed by a five-member board of commissioners.

Four of the five sitting commissioners have been appointed since last fall, after the then-chairman and vice-chairman of the board were removed by the city’s board of directors. The reconstituted board and staff have sought to strengthen the agency’s financial administration and management of the affiliated nonprofit organization following heightened federal oversight, including a “troubled” designation that regulators issued in August 2023.

The group of officials went to Cumberland Towers (311 E. Eighth St.), Fred W. Parris Towers (1800 Broadway) and Jesse Powell Towers (1010 Wolfe St.).

The high-rises were initially built in the 1970s and were converted from public housing to voucher-based Section 8 housing beginning in 2018 through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s initiative known as the Rental Assistance Demonstration program, in which funds from private sources are used. used to renovate public housing.

During this process, the Little Rock Towers were transferred to Gorman & Co. as the new landlord and manager.

The Cumberland and Parris towers previously served as senior housing, with units reserved for those 50 and older, but can now house others following the Rental Assistance Demonstration conversion.

Tojuanna Mays, an area manager with Gorman, walked officials Wednesday through model units, vacant units and shared common areas within the buildings.

Commissioners Kerry Wright, Karen Buchanan, Bruce James, Stacie Brown and Monty Baugh attended all or part of the tour.

Other participants included Lamont Wimbley, interim director of the Metropolitan Housing Alliance; Matthew DeSalvo, Little Rock’s new homeless chief; and Mark Stodola, an attorney for the housing authority and former mayor of Little Rock.

Currently, there are 28 or 29 vacant units at Cumberland Towers, 48 ​​at Parris Towers and seven at Powell Towers, Mays told officials.

Not all vacant units in Cumberland Towers are ready for new residents. About 12 of the units are ready to move in, Mays said.

Due to staffing shortages, other units are still preparing, she said, although the company recently hired a new service technician after previously relying on temporary workers.

Other aspects of the tour were also not entirely positive. When the group arrived at Parris Towers, one of the two elevators in the lobby was inoperable, apparently shortly before the officials arrived.

From one of the upstairs windows one could see a number of rubbish bins almost overflowing with rubbish, flanked by a number of shopping trolleys. (Later in the day, four of the five trash cans were found to be empty, but the shopping carts were still there, along with at least one office chair.)

During a visit to a model unit in the same building, officials engaged in a lengthy discussion about how to deal with safety issues there.

Mays told the audience about an altercation between two non-residents that had recently occurred outside Parris Towers in the early morning hours. A man suffered serious head injuries after a woman shoved him, Mays said.

Security is only present during the evening and night hours. Asked where security was when the incident occurred, Mays said the security guard was inside and suggested the fight probably happened too quickly for him to do anything about it.

Mays said, “There are people who sit outside all the time, and that’s what they do.” When something happens, it’s often between people who don’t live in the neighborhood, she said.

Many of the calls the Metropolitan Housing Alliance receives about Parris Towers “come from the neighbors,” Mays said, “because the neighbors don’t want this building here. It’s as simple as that.”

Buchanan, who is vice chairman of the housing authority’s board, said more problems arose when Parris Towers was converted from senior housing. She stated that the site should be fenced.

Residents who behave badly will be notified that they are in violation of their lease, Mays told officials.

However, because of the large number of vacancies, unless someone has committed a “serious crime,” the company has avoided an eviction and simply not renewed the person’s lease when it comes to renewal, she said.

“You don’t get good neighbors until you get rid of the bad neighbors,” Baugh noted, and Mays indicated she agreed.

By bringing together officials from the Metropolitan Housing Alliance, Gorman and the city, Wednesday’s visit provided a “good start” for conversation, Wimbley said as he stood next to James in front of Powell Towers.

Similarly, James endorsed the idea of ​​pursuing “cross-sector collaboration” between these entities. He also suggested researching security best practices, such as installing a fence.

Officials may be able to find a “happy medium” between generating revenue through high occupancy rates and “at the same time providing safety and socio-economic well-being for the residents who are there,” James said. “They deserve that.”