January 14, 2025
Among the many questionable prices introduced up by town of Hickory, North Carolina: $2,600 to Bahama Breeze.
Alanda Richardson, the CEO of the Hickory, North Carolina, Housing Authority is below scrutiny, after bank card statements revealed some questionable purchases, the Hickory Every day Report stories.
After contacting the U.S. Division of Housing and City Improvement, metropolis officers with the Hickory Public Housing Authority (HPHA) questioned purchases between July 5, 2022, and Sept. 9, 2024, made with a bank card in Richardson’s possession. These included a $388 cost to Ecostyle Chauffeured Transportation in Raleigh, a $1,415 cost from on-line retailer Temu, a $2,600 cost to Caribbean restaurant Bahama Breeze.
An enormous variety of purchases have been allegedly made on Dec. 14, 2023, together with a $445 at a Lowe’s ironmongery store in Morganton and $98 cost to Village Inn Pizza in Hickory.
“Because the (Hickory Public Housing Authority) exists to manage HUD’s Part 8 Voucher Program, the U.S. Division of Housing and City Improvement has been contacted and made conscious of this example,” metropolis officers stated in a press launch. “As extra involves gentle by the continued analysis of the HPHA’s monetary state of affairs and previous actions, extra info will likely be shared.”
Attributable to Richardson, who has served as CEO for over 20 years, not being a Hickory metropolis worker and town’s funds being separate from the housing authority, not one of the metropolis’s funds have been affected.
Nevertheless, it does heighten a number of the rising drama metropolis businesses are going through. Based on WHKY Information, a dialogue to abolish the Hickory Housing Authority has been circulating since October 2024.
Town council first offered a decision to switch duties to the Western Piedmont Council of Governments (WPCOG) on account of HPHA’s poor efficiency and complaints by residents towards the company. Following the proposed decision, 5 long-serving board members resigned on November 4.
The bank card accusations are the most recent in a rising variety of allegations towards Hickory’s housing authority.
In 2015, a 10-page criticism was filed towards a former company supervisor alleging they provided to pay feminine tenants’ lease for sexual favors. Richardson claimed the complaints got here from disgruntled staff and that her information, “no workers member ever introduced it to my consideration” and “no resident ever complained.”
RELATED CONTENT: Michigan Governor Indicators Regulation Stopping Landlords From Rejecting Renters Over Supply Of Earnings