FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Recently, four members of the Housing Authority of Fulton County have resigned.
The shake-up came after allegations of sexual harassment, financial misconduct, and poor management were leveled at the board. An Atlanta resident for the past two and a half years. Randall says she has been trying to get help from the Fulton County Housing Authority with no success.
“Fulton County Housing Authority is the worst,” Aasha Randall said, adding later, “I wanted better for me and my daughter, so I decided to come to Atlanta Georgia because I thought it would be better and I reached out to the housing authority and it took them so long to port me over I almost lost my voucher."
The process was so slow that she was homeless for three months in 2022, and she says things have only gotten worse.
“I lost my voucher because they didn’t do the paperwork on time, but I emailed them months and weeks ago, and my voucher expires on the 19th. They keep taking breaks; what are so many breaks?” Randall said.
And renters aren’t the only ones speaking out; one landlord who didn’t want to be identified on camera spoke with 11Alive.
“They kinda pay when they wanted to, when I say that within the month, for example…when the tenant first on board and gets settled in the home it takes 3 months for us to get a check three months,” added the landlord.
The concerns prompted housing authority chair Antavius Weem to contact the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Earlier this month, HUD responded, saying the agency could face sanctions and financial penalties for the failure, which also prompted the Fulton Board of Commission to act.
“It was anonymous agreement among the seven of us that we would ask our appoint to voluntarily resign,” said Fulton County Board of Commission Chairman Robb Pitts.
So far, four of the six board members have stepped down, and Pitts says the two holdouts will not prevent the rest they said HUD is asking for.
“What I’ve done is schedule a special call meeting for the purpose of discussing issues...related to housing authority and the resignations and or removal of the two who refused to resign, added Pitts.
Pitts says they will also appoint new board members during that meeting. Housing Authority chair Antavius Weem is one of the old house members and responds to concerns.
“I have no intentions of stepping down Allen at this point on the chairman of this housing Authority and we are fixing the issue he has committed to working with us. We’re working. We’ve actually on boarded all these new petitions that are critical such as HR Director such as finance people we’re having audits done, so work here is being done,” said Weem.
He also refutes the sexual harassment claims, saying those allegations were from 2023 and that individual was removed and is no longer on the board.
The special meeting of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners will discuss the Housing Authority on Monday, July 29th, at 10 a.m.