Shelecia Harper is alone on her street. Among the many vacant buildings with boarded-up windows, the 54-year-old’s home inside the Roger Williams housing community is the only one occupied on her block and one of only a few still occupied throughout the 453-unit complex. She said she will be moving soon. “I’m supposed to be going to South Bay Apartments,” Harper said. “It’s hard because they couldn’t put you nowhere in 90 days.” The Mobile Housing Board has worked to help move residents out of the development since July, in anticipation of redeveloping the property for mixed-use, mixed-income housing, using tax credits. Some residents, like Harper, were given a Housing Choice Voucher, commonly referred to as Section 8, to move to another apartment. While board employees have been helpful lately, Harper complained residents should have been given more time to move out in order to find better options. “At the last minute they put people where they don’t want to be,” she said. “They should’ve had a better situation.” MHB Executive Director Dwayne Vaughn confirmed through email they began moving the final families out of Roger Williams Homes on July 19, but it hasn’t quite been completed yet. “There were 110 families on site when the relocation effort was announced to the community … ,” he wrote. “MHB hopes to complete the relocation by the end of October 2016...

Like the Mobile Housing Board, neighboring housing authorities in New Orleans, Huntsville and Birmingham use nonprofit arms to manage everything from the distribution of tax credits to resident services, but none had the scope of responsibility Mobile Development Enterprises has. MDE has 23 employees, not including a maintenance crew once part of MHB’s vacancy reduction program. The maintenance employees have since been laid off, executive director Dwayne Vaughn said in a previous Lagniappe interview. Previous Lagniappe reporting and a report released last month by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General revealed that MDE and the board share office space, phone lines and bank accounts. A source familiar with the inner workings of the board’s central office said some MHB employees would complete assignments for the nonprofit. The OIG report also found that while MHB considers MDE a third-party affiliate and not technically part of the authority, its board included two MHB members and its executive director served as the nonprofit’s president. MDE still manages the WEALTH program, which provides a variety of education and job placement opportunities for residents. The program also provides health services such as free eye exams and annual checkups, as well as classes on life skills. MDE is also involved in the housing authority’s day care program, community relations, grant writing and asset management, Vaughn said. Comparatively, the Housing Authority of...

While a Mobile Housing Board official praised a program aimed at addressing an issue that was the focus of a blistering federal audit, both former and current employees called it a waste of money. In an email message sent earlier this month, MHB Executive Director Dwayne Vaughn called the agency’s Vacancy Reduction Program, or VRP, a “success.” He wrote that the plan, which was later called an “occupancy initiative,” was devised as a way to address the board’s “significant occupancy concerns.” The program was approved by HUD’s Alabama field office in 2011. “The VRP was approved by HUD-Birmingham on January 27, 2011, and fully operational on July 18, 2011,” Vaughn wrote. “Since the initiation of the VRP/OI occupancy effort, some 1,589 units have been turned, made ready, come online or otherwise leased. Moreover, all of the original units identified in the original VRP have been addressed, excepting those then-vacant units in Roger Williams Homes and Thomas James.” Vaughn said the program was multi-pronged. The plan was to demolish two obsolete sites — Roger Williams Homes and Josephine Allen — where some 90 percent of the board’s vacancies existed, as well as work to fill vacancies in other communities. The plan also sought to curb the number of move-outs to below national averages. The program was ultimately hurt by move-outs, Vaughn wrote. “We believe VRP/OI were successful. Unfortunately, MHB did...

More than 5,000 people are currently waiting for apartments or housing choice vouchers through the Mobile Housing Board, Executive Director Dwayne Vaughn recently confirmed in an email message. Although vouchers and rentals mean revenue for the authority, the MHB was unable to award vouchers to 4,808 people following a June 23-27 application window, Vaughn wrote, when a total of 6,257 people applied. There are also 668 people currently waiting for apartments in MHB’s 12 complexes. The wait time on the voucher list, which allows low-income renters and families rental assistance in a private complex, is anywhere from 12 to 24 months, Vaughn wrote. “The challenge to providing more families with housing does not stem from the number of families on the public housing waiting lists, although several properties could benefit from more robust waiting lists,” Vaughn wrote. “Rather, the challenge is the desirability of the communities, along with the age of the properties, their obsolete infrastructure and a reduction in the federal funding MHB receives that makes it difficult to spend the resources necessary to make apartments ready for rent.” The amount of money required to make some of the MHB apartments ready to lease runs anywhere from $1,000 to more than $30,000, he said, explaining “these circumstances are part of the reasons MHB is embarking on the Housing Transformation Plan 2020 and pursuing the Rental Assistance Demonstration program.”...