Crystal Tower (Photo: Courtesy of Crystal Towers United)
Michael Douglas, a public housing tenant in Winston-Salem, says he has grown tired of waiting to be represented on the Housing Authority’s board of commissioners.
Without a representative on the nine-member board, Douglas said his concerns and those of other public housing residents aren’t being addressed.
“They give us enough to shut us up and to make us go sit down,” said Douglas, who lives in Crystal Towers, a 201-unit public housing high rise near downtown that houses low-income residents. “But when we ask questions, we’re troublemakers. It’s not that, it’s just that we need self-determination about how we live and the things that are presented to us.”
Law allows exclusion of public housing residents
State law requires city officials to appoint at least one person who is “directly assisted by the housing authority” to serve on governing boards. That doesn’t mean, however, that the person must live in public housing. The appointee can, for example, receive a Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) and live in privately-owned housing.
Douglas questions whether someone who receives a voucher can represent the thousands of Winston-Salem residents who occupy the more than 1,300 public housing units the housing authority manages.
“They don’t have to put up with the things that we have to put up with,” Douglas said. “The mayor [Allen Joines] needs to appoint people that have a point of view that can represent the people that stay [in public housing].”
Lauren Song, a senior staff attorney with the National Housing Law Project, said that it’s critical to appoint residents from public housing communities to governing boards.
“Including a resident leader from a public housing development (ideally selected by residents) enhances the probability that the PHAs’ [Public Housing Authority’s] goals and priorities and investment of ever shrinking congressional appropriations reflect the critical needs of the often historic public housing communities PHAs are supposed to serve,” Song said.
Public housing is often more than a roof over the heads of families who are often from the lowest income backgrounds and racially and politically marginalized, she said.
“They are critical platforms for opportunity, services, mutual support, and collective power of people with valuable experience that should inform PHAs’ policies, strategies and everyday relationships with residents,” Song said.
In Winston-Salem, Felicia Brinson is the lone commissioner who meets the legal requirement that at least one person “directly assisted” by the housing authority be appointed to the board.
Douglas claims Brinson has been unresponsive to public housing tenants.
“We’ve tried to reach out to the individual on the board that’s receiving a voucher, and she refuses to communicate with us,” Douglas said. “We approached her at a meeting, and she refuses to call us or get back with us or take our calls.”
NC Newsline could not reach Brinson for comment. However, Kevin Cheshire, the housing authority’s executive director and general counsel, confirmed that Brinson is the recipient of a housing voucher.
“The statute requires not that she [Brinson] be a resident – but rather that she be ‘directly assisted,’ which she is,” Cheshire wrote in an email response to questions about Brinson’s status. “Commissioner Brinson has been made aware that media is attempting to contact her – she has asked that all media inquiries be referred to Housing Authority staff.”
Joines also confirmed that Brinson is a voucher recipient.
“We have one such member on the housing authority right now, and we’ve met our statutory obligations to do that,” Joines told NC Newsline in late October.
A push for better representation
Housing Justice Now, a tenant advocacy group in Winston-Salem of which Douglas is a member, has demanded that Joines fill upcoming vacancies with residents from public housing.
“Public housing residents have demanded that they be given representation on the HAWS [Housing Authority of Winston-Salem] Board,” Housing Justice Now wrote in an Oct. 21 press release. “According to state law, the Mayor can appoint up to three public housing residents to serve. Thus far, he has appointed zero.”
No more than one-third of the members of any housing authority commission can be tenants of the authority or a recipient of housing assistance through any program operated by the authority. So, Joines could appoint as many as three public housing residents to the nine-member board.
Housing Justice Now went on to explain that public housing residents have “grown frustrated with their lack of input on the matters that are germane to their living conditions.”
“In fact, public housing authorities are required by federal policy to have residents be ‘involved and participate in the overall policy development and direction of Public Housing operations,” the group said.
Joines is open to appointing at least one public housing resident to the board.
“I do have some potential vacancies coming up in the near future with some folks who are resigning or their terms have expired,” Joines said. “I’ve been looking at adding another [public housing] representative or so.”
Housing Justice Now has also been critical of Joines’ decision to extend the term of board chairman Andrew Perkins, which expired Sept. 30. The group had erroneously believed Perkins’ term expired a year earlier but has conceded that Sept. 30, 2024 was the correct date. Board members are appointed to five-year terms.
“It just expired,” Joines said of Perkins’ term. “He’s able to continue until his replacement is made. Since we’ve got some potential vacancies coming up, I feel like it would be good to keep Mr. Perkins in place during the transition period until we get everybody filled and then refill his position.”
Pleas for building improvements
Crystal Tower residents have longstanding complaints about what they say are substandard living conditions inside the 11-story building. Residents have complained about broken elevators, damaged showers and laundry areas and unsanitary conditions.
A draft of the Housing Authority’s most recent Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) shows elevator modernization and replacement at several public housing communities including Crystal Towers. It also shows lobby and laundry renovations at Crystal Towers and emergency power equipment upgrades.
“I’ve got neighbors who’ve been bitten by mice,” Douglas said in a short documentary about Crystal Towers titled “United.” “I’ve got floors that have asbestos in them. We recently had a renovated lobby but nobody lives in the lobby. We live upstairs in the apartments.”
“United” was shot by Wake Forest documentary MFA student Loui Poore. It highlights the struggles of Crystal Towers United, a tenant’s union. Douglas is a part of the union that is fighting to improve living conditions for Crystal Towers residents. The film is part of an affordable housing series that Poore is working on.
Douglas said it takes someone who resides in public housing to clearly articulate the concerns of residents.
“They [city officials and housing commissioners] are going home to their homes where they can do and say anything that they want, and we are left behind in buildings that are deficient,” Douglas said.
Douglas added: “We’re left behind with services that are deficient. We’re left behind with courtyards that we are not allowed to sit in. We can’t walk across our parking lots, you know, and get to the building safely. We got people out there in the parking lot that’s living under the trees along the sides of the parking lot. We ask for lights and stuff to be in the parking lot. They give us a better view of the way we walk to the building, just little things that they don’t care about because they don’t have to live like that.”
Douglas shared that the mayor offered him an ad hoc position on the board of commissioners but learned that he was not authorized to do so.
“He [Joines] has said and done everything to keep me quiet or to make me go sit down somewhere for a period of time and now, he’s got two people, two positions open on the board, and he refuses to put me and another individual over there that live in the building [Crystal Towers],” Douglas said.
Douglas said many Crystal Towers residents want to see him appointed to the board because they know the “I’m going to represent them and represent them fiercely.”
The housing authority’s leadership knows it too, Douglas said.
“They’re basically looking for someone that’s gonna pretty much go along with his [Cheshire’s] program,” Douglas said. “I’m just a little too boisterous. I’m not going to rubber stamp anything or just sign off on anything without questioning it.”