The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has agreed to allow the Mobile Housing Board to sell off Josephine Allen Homes, MHB Executive Director Dwayne Vaughn said during a meeting Wednesday morning. The 292-unit housing complex north of downtown has been vacant and boarded up for some time, which has affected funding from the federal department through “historically low” occupancy rates, but Vaughn told board members they recently got HUD permission to sell the property. Vaughn told board members if the property doesn’t sell they would petition HUD once again to allow demolition of the complex, in order to boost those occupancy rates. Bids for the property will go out in about 30 to 60 days, once a new appraisal is completed, Vaughn said. The property was last appraised in 2011. The property would be open to commercial or other development, he said. “The property would be offered for public sale,” Vaughn wrote in an email message, following the meeting. “There would be no restrictions on who could bid. The bidding process would be open to all, for whatever purpose the buyer deemed appropriate.” Vaughn added that HUD would have no future interest in the property once the sale is finalized. When asked if there was any chance the current structures at the Josephine Allen complex could be rehabbed by a developer, Vaughn said “they’ll have to come...

The Mobile Housing Board postponed its regularly scheduled meetings in January and February. Both original meetings were rescheduled due to failure to reach a quorum, Executive Director Dwayne Vaughn wrote in an email message over the weekend. “The originally scheduled meeting was postponed due largely to illness of some of the members and business travel out of the city by another,” Vaughn wrote. The board held a makeup January meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 28. The February board meeting originally scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 11, will now be held on Wednesday, Feb. 25. “The meeting was not held due to a lack of quorum, caused in part by unexpected business travel for two members and a serious illness by a third,” Vaughn wrote. The January meeting marked the first for Mayor Sandy Stimpson’s newest board appointee, Joyce Freeman. “It is my pleasure to appoint Ms. Freeman,” Stimpson said. “She brings an honest voice to this leadership team and I’m sure she will fulfill her duties with integrity.” Freeman replaced Ruby Lang, whose term expired last year. Freeman lives in public housing, fulfilling the board’s requirement to appoint at least one tenant. In addition to her position on the board, Freeman is president of the resident association of Central Plaza Tower. She is a lifelong resident of Mobile and graduated from Bishop State Community College. Her four-year term expires in January...

The Mobile Housing Board’s failing score on a recent federal assessment is a reflection of a large number of vacant units, not shortcomings in management or other issues, according to Dwayne Vaughn, the board’s executive director. Nevertheless, in a letter to Board Chairman Clarence Ball dated March 17, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development designated the board “Substandard Management” and ordered it to “take immediate action to identify the sources of the performance deficiencies and develop and implement a plan to recover its [assessment] score and ensure long-term sustainability at an acceptable level of performance.” For the fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2012, the board received an overall Public Housing Assessment System (PHAS) score of 63 out of 100, a combination of indicators from its physical facilities, its finances, its management and its capital fund.    In the letter, HUD acknowledges that generally, when a public housing agency becomes management substandard, it has failed to maintain an acceptable occupancy level in its developments. But HUD also warns that without an adequate response, it has the authority to initiate its own improvement plan, effectively becoming the day-to-day operator of the housing board. “The system is weighted heavily toward full occupancy,” Vaughn said, explaining that Mobile’s score was skewed negatively by a complete vacancy at the 292-unit Josephine Allen development and a partial vacancy at the 452-unit Roger Williams...

Though former Mayor Sam Jones ran up against the political rocks while trying to reappoint members to the Industrial Development Board before he left office, he did not have similar problems re-upping the terms of three Mobile Housing Board commissioners last summer before he left the 10th floor of Government Plaza. Because state law says the mayor alone appoints members to the Housing Board, Jones was able to essentially keep the current members in control of the area’s public housing until August of 2016. The move effectively blocked new-mayor Sandy Stimpson from choosing any of his own additions to the board until next August, and Stimpson appointees would not have a majority on the board until August 2016, should he choose to replace current members. Jones’ reappointments might not raise any eyebrows if they had come as each commissioner’s five-year term expired. But during his eight years in office, according to records from the Mobile City Clerk’s Office, Jones only made reappointments once before this past summer, and not as each individual term expired. Board terms are for five years and are staggered so they expire at different times. At various times during Jones’ term in office, each of the five Housing Board members’ terms expired, often for many years, according to City Clerk’s records. One spot on the board also remained vacant for more than a year until...

According to financial records provided to the IRS by Mobile Development Enterprises, the non-profit subsidiary of the Mobile Housing Board was more than $500,000 in the red in 2011 even as its number of employees exploded by 300 percent. Those records and others also appear to show that as MDE’s ranks have grown, the Housing Board itself has seen a drastic reduction in the amount of employees still working under the oversight of the Mobile County Personnel Board. MDE was incorporated as a non-profit in 2003 by then-Mobile Housing Board Executive Director Stevens Gregory. Housing Board Chairman Clarence Ball and Vice-Chairman Donald Langham also were listed on the MDE board of directors and remain there today, according to Mobile County Probate Court records. The Housing Board also incorporated a for-profit version of MDE in 1997 that remains active as well. MDE’s articles of incorporation were updated in 2010 to replace Gregory with current MHB Executive Director Dwayne Vaughn. Vaughn has described MDE as doing primarily construction management. It was active in working the first phases of the HOPE VI revitalization program that built the Orange Grove and Renaissance developments north of downtown. MDE had its tax-exempt status yanked by the IRS in May 2010 for failing to file its 990 financial forms for three straight years. Vaughn says the 501(c)3 had that tax-exempt status restored a couple of months...