The Pell City Public Housing Authority has been called the best-run “family” business in Pell City.

Of course, public housing is not suppose to be a family business, in fact, there are rules against family members working together in HUD funded public housing.

The director of public housing for Pell City, Mrs. Lynn Smith, has worked along side her husband at the housing authority since 1994.

Mrs. Smith became director of the housing authority in 1998 and an exception was made for her husband to continue as head of maintenance for the facility.

The waiver was granted on the grounds that no other person in Pell City was qualified for the position.

This, on its face, would seem to be a gross overstatement but as in all things involving the federal government the exception proves the rule.

Today, such an arrangement would not be possible according to Mrs. Smith, yet this employment arrangement continues.

Not only is Mrs. Smith’s husband the head of maintenance, according to sources her father-in-law is most often the general contractor for work being preformed at the facility.

In a story we published last week, it was asserted that the Pell City Housing Authority had not grown in the last decade. According to Mrs. Smith, last year, HUD informed her that there was no money for new buildings in the foreseeable future. In last week’s story we also said that the 4-bedroom units remained unleased and used for storage units. Mrs. Smith has informed us that that renovation is to begin on two of the four bedroom units and that of the three families on the waiting list, two will be provided housing when the renovations are complete.

The housing authority manages a total of 78 units with a waiting list of approximately 48 people according to Mrs. Smith. She says she does not know what the actual waiting time is for people on the list but says that they move people in as quickly as they can.

According to HUD, “Public housing was established to provide decent and safe rental housing for eligible low-income families, the elderly and persons with disabilities. Public housing comes in all sizes and types, from scattered single-family houses to high-rise apartments for elderly families. There are approximately 1.2 million households living in public housing units, managed by some 3,300 Housing Authorities.”

These are taxpayer-funded housing facilities, my money and yours goes into building and maintain these facilities. Public housing was never intended to be a womb-to-tomb residences but a steppingstone to independence.

My concern for Pell City housing is this, “Are the citizens being served by the investment of their tax dollars?”

By this, I also ask are the low-income families to Pell City being served or only a chosen few?

A year or so ago, I was asked to take a look at the Pell City Housing Authority and give my assessment. I found it to be clean, well kept and within what I knew to be HUD standards. To that I added that while Mrs. Smith was a competent property manager, a property manager and a Executive Director are two very different jobs. The fact that the housing authority is just now completing phase one renovations that began in 1999, that the same 4-bedroom apartments remain empty since my visit a year ago and that there is not a plan for growth, tells me that there is grave insufficiencies in the operations of the Authority.

In a conversation with Mrs. Smith she said the yearly operating expense for the Housing Authority was around $300,000.

When asked what percentage of that went to salaries she said she did not know. There are only four employees at the Housing Authority; surely she knows what their salaries are. Is this an indication of the type of management or is something being hidden? I have tried on several occasions to discover how much Mrs. Smith and her husband earn in their positions, I have been told by reputable sources that combined it is in the six figure range when including benefits. If that is the case, and if the father-in-law is, in fact, a significant contractor, then it is the best family run business in Pell City.

Public housing is for people in need; it is not a permanent resident but a temporary solution to an immediate problem. If public housing is not moving people up and out it is failing. If public housing is for the gain of a few it is wrong.

The citizens deserve answers concerning many aspects of the Housing Authority and it operations.

I think a public forum on the issue would be useful, as it seems that the current Housing Authority Board may suffer from visually impaired oversight.