Last year, the president and CEO of the Houston Housing Authority (HHA), David Northern Sr., stepped down from his position amid an investigation into his job performance by the HHA Board of Commissioners. The HHA has pledged that this transition in organizational leadership will have minimal impacts for residents at HHA’s mixed income and public housing properties. Now, the incoming HHA President and CEO, Jamie Bryant, has an opportunity reset HHA operations and finally get back to the basic business of serving Houston’s lowest-income residents well.
From the announcement of a voucher freeze earlier in the year, several reports of concerning program management practices uncovered in audits, a federal investigation into potential environmental concerns at a new mixed income development, the multitude of tax breaks to developers that don’t even serve the mission of the agency, and the decision to reposition all public housing into public private partnerships – the HHA has been at the center of numerous abuses and controversies. This transition is an opportunity for the HHA to improve the reputation and service of both their program management and their overarching organizational direction.
With the confirmation of Bryant, a Houston-area real estate executive, as incoming president & CEO of the HHA, the agency must refocus on its mission of providing safe, decent, and deeply affordable housing to Houston’s lowest income renters. The new president and CEO has an opportunity to utilize this transition to emerge as a true leader amongst public housing authorities in providing smart and time-tested solutions to affordable housing for low-income Houstonians. By furnishing opportunities for economic mobility and housing stability in a region where the lowest income renters are being priced out of the rental housing market, Bryant’s HHA can build a future these residents deserve.
In his first week, new HHA President & CEO Jamie Bryant must commit to the following five things:
1. Directly address residents’ concerns about property conditions, safety, and management, and improve accountability to and communications with residents.
2. Explicitly recommit to the Houston Housing Authority’s primary mission of meeting the housing needs of lowest-income households. Directly show the public how PFC activity is meeting this need, or else cease PFC activity and related property tax exemptions that are not serving lowest-income housing needs.
3. Increase and improve transparency, engagement, and accountability regarding the repositioning of public housing into public-private partnerships. Ensure that the repositioning model creates opportunities of long-term housing stability for residents and their communities, rather than removing them.
4. Take dramatic actions to make the housing voucher program live up to its promise to connect low-income residents to safe and decent housing in the region, and to address audits that show failures in voucher program management.
5. Communicate with full transparency about serious failures in security, financial management, contracting to residents and the public, and outline how HHA will fix these breaches.
Directly address residents’ concerns about property conditions, safety, and management, and improve accountability to and communications with residents.
Texas Housers has attended multiple HHA board meetings in recent months and has heard a myriad of concerns regarding repairs and property conditions directly from HHA residents that have not been addressed in a timely manner across several public housing and mixed income properties in the HHA’s portfolio. The incoming President & CEO has a critical opportunity to reset relationships with residents and address their concerns.
In speaking with residents at Kelly Village throughout the fall of last year – who are facing displacement due to the I-45 expansion – the imminent relocation is not the only concern heavy on their mind.
Many residents expressed dissatisfaction with the conditions on the property, such as delays in necessary repairs and issues with air conditioning units following the May 2024 Derecho. Residents also shared concerns of a lack of communication from their property management pertaining to when they are informed of safety warnings and conditions, lease and accommodation issues and their imminent relocation. Residents also revealed instances where they encountered hostility or apathy from property management when concerns were raised and feared retaliation if they were to speak out against property management. Other residents are deeply concerned for their physical safety on the property and demanded that further action be taken to ensure that the community is safe and free of violence.
Residents at Kelly Village also envision how their property can be more than just shelter: providing services for children and youth, promoting access to healthy foods, engaging tenants with events that grow a sense of community, and assisting residents who are experiencing mental health issues. Resident service coordinators, who are HHA employees, are charged with fulfilling some of these duties, and navigating residents to appropriate resources that promote family and community stability and self-sufficiency.
It must be noted that the property management company at Kelly Village changed in December 2024. The shift in management grants a fresh start for incoming HHA President Bryant and HHA senior leadership to ensure that resident concerns are resolved promptly, restoring trust in the property management. We call on incoming HHA president Bryant to actively repair the housing authority’s relationship with residents, who have felt forgotten and neglected.
Explicitly recommit to the Houston Housing Authority’s primary mission of meeting the housing needs of lowest-income households. Directly show the public how PFC activity is meeting this need, or else cease PFC activity and related property tax exemptions that are not serving lowest-income housing needs.
The HHA has entered into a number of tax break deals with private developers over the past year, utilizing Public Facility Corporation (PFC) property tax exemptions, and other similar exemptions under Chapter 392 of the Texas Local Government Code.
However, the units created and acquired under these deals are not serving the lowest income households in Houston, as a Houston Chronicle analysis found, revealing that only 1% of units that no longer pay property taxes through these deals are actually affordable to those making 30%-50% of the area median income (AMI). The vast majority of the units that are given tax breaks through these deals are available for renters making 60% to 80% AMI, where there already is a surplus of units in Houston, and which are not affordable to the lowest-income renters whom HHA are charged to serve.
HHA leadership has argued that the money raised through these deals finances capital improvements on older properties in the HHA portfolio, as traditional funding streams to help these properties have dried up. In this way, they argue that these deals do serve the lowest income renters under HHA’s charge. However, the flow of this money is not currently properly monitored or restricted, and its alleged misuse under Northern’s leadership was one reason for his departure.
Utilizing funds from these tax break deals to improve conditions is a cost-beneficial usage of these funds, however, the tax break deals the HHA has been prioritizing have not necessarily expanded the supply of housing stock that is in the greatest need. HHA has strayed from their mission of providing decent, quality housing in a neighborhood of residents’ choice in their expansion of their property portfolio to focus on PFC deals. The properties acquired through these deals are totally inaccessible to the population of renters the HHA is intended to serve. There are serious questions about misuse of the funds that HHA has received through these deals, as audits concerningly revealed that some funds generated by PFCs are not even being collected by the HHA. Incoming President Bryant must take a close examination of whether a prioritization of PFCs is truly fulfilling the mission of the HHA.
The controversies don’t end there for the PFC properties. Take for example, the controversial “800 Middle” project, now named the Pointe at Bayou Bend, which utilized the PFC property tax exemption model. This new mixed income housing development in Second Ward was intended to serve as replacement housing for Clayton Homes residents who were displaced due to the I-45 expansion. The property has become a hotbed of controversy due to alleged environmental hazards, as the property was built adjacent to an old trash incinerator, and was placed under federal investigation months before the development was slated to open. Regardless of the investigation, the property was completed. Houston Mayor John Whitmire has stopped the lease process for residents in light of this pending environmental investigation.
The new HHA president must respond to these PFC concerns. Bryant has an opportunity to install hard guidelines on where this kind of funding goes, and it must serve communities in need of new affordable housing and improvement of current affordable housing, rather than kickbacks and abuses.
Increase and improve transparency, engagement, and accountability regarding the repositioning of public housing into public-private partnerships. Ensure that the repositioning model creates opportunities of long-term housing stability for residents and their communities, rather than removing them.
In their 2025 Annual Plan, the HHA detailed their goal to utilize different HUD financing tools to shift their public housing portfolio from HHA-managed into public-private partnerships. While these tools, such as the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and the Choice Neighborhood Initiative Grants (CNI) provide novel opportunities to redevelop older public housing properties through leveraging new streams of capital, these tools also present risks to the current residents on the property.
Any demolition or renovation of public housing leads to displacement of residents – whether it be temporary or permanent – and often unravels the historic culture of a place. Displacement is inherently disruptive for the lives of public housing residents and their families, and the PHA responsible for relocation has a responsibility to ensure that this process is as least disruptive as possible and emphasizes, above all else, resident choice. Communication and engagement during the redevelopment process is crucial to improving the property for the benefit of the current residents and existing community so they are able to return to the renovated property if they so choose.
In redevelopment processes, it’s common that public housing residents never return to the property. Many accept a voucher that presents opportunities for families to move into housing in the neighborhood of their choice. However, families who choose to take a voucher also encounter risks as they transition to a different subsidy while navigating the process of finding a decent and affordable property that will accept a voucher, and are often not fully made aware of the risk that comes from renting with a subsidy on the private market. The process of a change in assistance can be difficult to navigate for public housing residents without proper support and case management from the housing authority. Moreover, both the CNI and RAD programs are designed in a way that is intentional about promoting resident engagement and feedback; however, whether or not resident engagement is meaningfully solicited and utilized in project design in action is another story.
Incoming President Bryant must ensure these repositioning processes center the community and do not lead to mass displacement and gentrification. Considering all of the potential issues that can emerge in the repositioning process, incoming HHA President Bryant must ensure that repositioning processes meaningfully provide two-way communication with residents, allow for resident and community feedback, and provide residents the proper support in case management to ensure that their temporary or permanent displacement is as non-disruptive as possible and prioritizes the needs of each individual or family.
Take dramatic actions to make the housing voucher program live up to its promise to connect low-income residents to safe and decent housing in the region, and to address audits that show failures in voucher program management.
Housing Choice Vouchers are not easy to come by for a Houston resident. The HHA announced a freeze on issuing vouchers in 2024, due to the rising cost of paying the subsidized portion of tenants’ rent currently in the program. The agency has pointed to a shortfall of federal funding to cover the rising cost of rents, specifically citing a prioritization of serving those in the area with the most need requiring a greater amount of the subsidized rent be paid. Expansion of voucher access is critical for Houston’s housing affordability.
And while many other housing authorities throughout the nation are experiencing a similar funding shortfall for current participants on the HHA voucher program, we hold additional concerns about the HHA’s current practices in their voucher program operations. Audits from 2022 and 2023 each found a number of missed annual income examinations for residents, and could not justify certain individuals positions on the voucher waitlist. These shortcomings in program compliance are concerning as they indicate that certain residents who may be eligible to move up on the waitlist and receive vouchers are not being moved in a timely manner, and a lack of attention to annual income re-examinations may impact voucher program participants’ ability to obtain the most affordable rent for their unit.
However, once an HHA tenant receives their voucher, their problems do not end. Texas Housers has followed several tenants over the past year who attempted to obtain housing with their HHA voucher, only for them to be repeatedly turned away from properties due to their voucher being their primary source of income, or had to settle for properties that had inhabitable or unsafe conditions as those were the only properties that would accept the subsidy.
Incoming President Bryant must be a fierce advocate for the population the HHA is meant to serve by continuing efforts to push for more federal funding for vouchers. Bryant also must ensure that the agency is accountable to families who wish to rent with a voucher in the greater Houston area. Given the realities that voucher program participants experience while trying to locate quality housing with a voucher in a state like Texas, which expressly allows landlords to deny tenants who have a voucher on the basis of that subsidy, incoming President Bryant’s approach must be twofold. First, the voucher program must take proactive steps to reduce administrative barriers and dispel biased preconceived notions about voucher program participants to encourage landlord participation in the program. Second, the voucher program must ensure tenant program participants are not experiencing a poor customer service experience due to administrative oversight or misconduct, and ensure that the rental units that voucher program participants reside in are in good condition.
Communicate with full transparency about serious failures in security, financial management, contracting to residents and the public, and outline how HHA will fix these breaches.
The HHA experienced a data breach in September 2024, and a ransomware attack in November 2024 that compromised residents’ sensitive information. Tenants were alerted several weeks after the incident occurred, and were only offered minimal assistance in the form of a singular free credit check. The HHA refused to disclose to some news agencies the number of households impacted by this data breach. In speaking with public housing residents, many were justifiably concerned about the breaches, and the lack of information provided by the HHA to residents following the breaches.
The HHA has also come under scrutiny under former President and CEO David Northern’s leadership for financial mismanagement. As HHA executives received pay increases, and employees were treated to lavish dinners, travel, and perks such as massages in the office and a opulent holiday party, residents in HHA-assisted properties are left with minimal supportive services and resources, a laundry list of capital improvements necessary to rectify poor conditions on the oldest properties, and thousands of households remain on the voucher waitlist in need of affordable housing after the agency froze voucher spending.
This pattern of fiscal mismanagement is reflected in the HHA’s assignment of contracts and alleged misuse of funds under former leadership. For example, an HHA project to install air conditioners at three of the oldest public housing properties utilizing PFC funds – Cuney Homes, Kelly Village and Irvington Village – almost doubled its budget, with some residents not receiving the improvements on their units in a timely manner, and assigned contracts to out of state contractors. These contracting issues are not isolated, as another project intended to connect the Columbia Tap Trail to Cuney Homes and provide external improvements around Cuney Homes, also went over budget and left residents questioning the quality of the work done.
What is most concerning about the HHA’s pattern of financial management is how it may impact the selection for awards of larger contracts, such as the tax break deals that the organization under former President Northern’s leadership prioritized. HHA President Jamie Bryant must alter this alarming course of action, and ensure that spending within the organization is beneficial for the residents the HHA serves and the lowest-income Houstonians, not the pockets of the executive staff of the HHA and their friends.
It is critical at this moment more than ever, when Houstonians are facing rising costs of rent and living, that the new president of the HHA reorient the organization back to its mission: serving the lowest-income Houstonians by furnishing them with housing options that are safe, deeply affordable, and in the neighborhood of their choice.
As the chief executive officer of Houston Housing Authority, Jamie Bryant must restore public trust in the agency through leadership that is transparent and accountable, to taxpayers and, most importantly, the HHA’s clientele. We invite Incoming-president Bryant to meet with HHA residents and Texas Housers to discuss how he can lead HHA and get the agency back on track.
