A Lakeland commissioner has called for an independent investigation into the Lakeland Housing Authority.
Commissioner Guy LaLonde sent an Aug. 28 letter to the Housing Authority’s board of directors calling for a full disclosure of its records and an independent third-party audit and review. He presented copies to fellow commissioners at the Aug. 29 agenda study. “This letter is to raise consistent concerns raised by residents and employees stating favoritism in housing placements, questionable record keeping, forfeited Family Sufficiency Funds, issues in governances and oversight, as well as the human impact on families waiting years on the list,” LaLonde said on Aug. 29.
The commissioner stressed his aim was not “accusatory, but restorative.”
Ben Stevenson, executive director of the Lakeland Housing Authority, said he had not received a copy of LaLonde’s letter yet.
“I have no fear of a fair and impartial investigation,” he told The Ledger. “We’ve been running the program with integrity the whole time.
Summer of housing complaints
Over the summer, Lakeland received numerous complaints from residents about issues with the housing authority.
The Housing Authority operates as an independent entity from the City of Lakeland, and the City Commission does have authority to appoint members to its board of directors.
Naquaisha Coward, a single mother with four daughters, stepped forward at the Sept. 2 commission meeting with a statement on behalf of several of LHA’s tenants.
“Today I am coming to you on behalf of the terrified residents of the city. We represent a community that is afraid, scared and feel unsafe at this time due to Lakeland Housing Authority,” she said. “I don’t want to discredit them for the work they have done. We have many who want to speak out and share what they are experiencing and going through, but are terrified of retaliation.”
In an email to the commission, Coward said she attempted to work with the Housing Authority to become a homeowner and followed several required steps, including rebuilding her credit score. However, when it came time to move forward on purchasing an affordable house, she was ignored by staff, including LHA’s executive director.
Stevenson fired back in an email that Coward was instructed she has the responsibility to seek out a mortgage lender who would agree to give her a loan to purchase a home, a service not provided by the agency.
Coward said she also briefly worked as an employee for the housing agency until she was “wrongfully terminated” after three months when speaking up about possible discrimination of applications based on race.
“We are seeing a disturbing pattern where residents who are not of Hispanic or Latino descent are being given 90-day notices of non-renewal on their leases. We believe this is a result of systemic manipulations and discrimination,” she wrote.
LHA resident Tereva Thomas said she voiced concerns in the fall of 2024 when she saw a maintenance worker removing appliances from units and failing to address repeated requests for repairs. In a July 31 email, she said she said her family were removed from her three-bedroom apartment unit shortly afterward.
“I was relocated to a different unit and since then, have been subjected to undue pressure and threats regarding my housing stability,” she wrote.
Thomas accused LHA staff of threatening to terminate her housing voucher over an issue they had been aware of long in advance.
Other requests have come into the city anonymously, suggesting the City Commission request an audit of how the Housing Authority dispersed Family Self-Sufficiency Funds provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and rampant overtime.
Based on these claims and others, LaLonde has made the following demands of the Lakeland Housing Authority:
LHA director rebuts claims
Stevenson said complaints began to surface over the summer from Coward and others and have been addressed both in the agency’s board meetings and emails to the commission.
“None of it is true,” he said. “I’ve responded to all of those allegiations.”
Contrary to claims, Stevenson said while there are LHA staff members who are related to him, they do not work directly under him and do not in any way report to him as a superior. The executive director said there are degrees of separation from him.
“Just because a person is related to me doesn’t mean they forfeit their right to employment at Lakeland Housing or their right to public assistance,” Stevenson said.
In an email to Lakeland commissioners, Stevenson said many of the records residents and community members have attempted to demand from the housing authority simply don’t exist. He cites an example of being unable to provide a list of where LHA employees live in public housing, when none do.
“LHA has received recent public records requests that are attempting to prove a conspiracy theory. The requests are based upon misinformation, misrepresentation and outright lies,” Stevenson wrote in an email.
The Housing Authority is audited annually by HUD and the Florida Housing Finance Corp., he said, in addition to independent third-party reviews. There have been no violations.
The agency itself also has no eviction authority, Stevenson said. All cases are reviewed by an attorney before being filed in Polk County Court, where a judge hears a case and makes a determination on whether eviction will be ordered. It’s not as simple as posting a letter on someone’s door.
“None of the requesters appear to be experts on HUD policy or understand the interworking of a modern PHA [public housing authority]. They are making accusations of violations of public housing policy without understanding that public housing rules cannot be applied to tax credit housing units,” Stevenson wrote.
Tax-credited housing units are owned by private investors, who have their own rules and regulations of who may apply and be accepted as a tenant, Stevenson said.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lakeland commissioner demands investigation of Housing Authority. Director responds
Reporting by Sara-Megan Walsh, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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