Biden Administration official promises action on troubled Housing Authority. Tenants have complained for a year.

A key member of President Joe Biden's administration promised Thursday to straighten out Milwaukee's troubled public housing agency.

More than 10,000 Milwaukee residents — many of whom are low income Black and Latino — rely on the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee for shelter. The agency operates about 5,200 rental units across the city and distributes about $40 million a year in federal rent subsidies.

In the past year, reports of heating outages, bed bug infestations and gun violence inside Housing Authority properties have made headlines and prompted calls for reform. Tenants and community organizers say the agency isn't doing enough to keep its residents safe or address their concerns. For more than a year, they've been calling on federal regulators to step in and force change.

Adrianne Todman, a top federal housing official who joined Vice President Kamala Harris on a visit to Milwaukee Thursday, said her agency "has taken all these concerns seriously, and there will be something done about it."

Todman is the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides the city's Housing Authority with most of its funding.

"I've been talking very closely with a person who's in charge of public housing at HUD, and I'm actually sitting down with him tomorrow to get an update on what's happening in Milwaukee," Todman said Thursday.

It's the first time a federal official has spoken publicly about the concerns which have been raised in protests, including outside the home of a Housing Authority Board member.

Her comments signal that the problems inside Milwaukee's public housing have the attention of the Biden Administration, as the President is trying to shore up support from Black voters in Wisconsin before the upcoming election.

Three times this year, tenants and members of Common Ground, an advocacy group elevating tenants' concerns, have tried to air their concerns during meetings of the Housing Authority board. Those efforts were stymied when meetings were moved to virtual calls on short notice.

The Housing Authority is led by Willie Hines, a former Milwaukee alderman and Common Council president. Common Ground has repeatedly called for Hines' resignation.

Hines reports to the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, whose members are nominated by the mayor. The seven-member board has three current vacancies.

Asked whether the federal government still had confidence in the Housing Authority's leadership, Todman was noncommittal.

"It's been a long time since I've had an update in terms of the leadership itself and what's happening behind that," she said. "But that's something we'll be taking action on, if we've lost that confidence."

Todman noted that the mayor and the Housing Authority board would be involved in a decision.

"We look to to local leadership here," she said. "The mayor is involved. There is a board that typically is involved with some of these decisions. So we turn to them first to see what their ideas are about leadership and operations of the Housing Authority. And we work very closely with them to get things on the right track."

Auditors raised red flags over waste and fraud

The Housing Authority is already on two corrective action plans from the federal government, after HUD officials uncovered "risk for serious fraud, waste and abuse" during a recent audit.

The Housing Authority has been ordered to hire an outside contractor to run its rental assistance office. It's also been ordered to reconstruct five years of financial records.

Last month, HUD gave the Housing Authority a "troubled" score on its annual federal report card.

For its financial conditions, the Housing Authority scored 0/25 points. The physical conditions of its properties, too, received a poor grade — scoring just 26/40 points.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Biden cabinet member promises action on troubled Housing Authority