The Asheville Housing Authority Board voted to install a new interim leader, weeks after it fired former President and CEO Monique Pierre.
Rhodney Norman, selected unanimously by board members, will serve until further notice.
Meanwhile, board members have been told they’ll have to re-apply for their positions – despite several being midway through their appointed terms. Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer has sole authority to appoint and terminate housing authority board members under state law.
Earlier this month, Manheimer told the current board that they would all need to reapply for their positions, the Asheville Citizen-Times first reported.
“I did ask each member to reapply for their board positions, and I called each member individually to make this request,” she told BPR on Thursday. “Per statute, I can only remove members for cause, therefore, if I don’t reappoint a member, I will have to provide a letter stating the grounds and submit that letter to the Clerk. It will be a public document.”
A newly appointed board is expected in December or early January, the Citizen-Times reported. A letter to board members, obtained by BPR, shows Pierre notified the housing authority board of Manheimer’s pending new appointments prior to her firing.
Norman previously served as a maintenance director for the Housing Authority. He has worked in public housing since 2008, he told BPR.
“I started in Brevard in public housing and kind of worked my way up the ranks,” he said. Three years ago, Norman moved to Asheville to serve as a property manager for Asheville’s housing authority and eventually was promoted to a maintenance director role, he said.
He decided to accept the interim position because he wanted to give staff and residents “a little bit of security.”
“They do see me in the community and I wanted to assure them that until we find something permanent that I could at least give some leadership,” he said.
In his new role, Norman said his top priorities include hurricane cleanup and helping residents who have lost income stay in their homes.
READ MORE: Soiled sheets and overflowing toilets: Public housing residents decry post-Helene conditions
Before Pierre was fired, she submitted 13 waivers to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for various program criteria changes. Two possible changes requested from the waivers would be to allow the housing authority to reduce minimum rent to zero, in certain cases, and reduce the amount of documentation that public housing residents must have for income eligibility determination. In layman’s terms, the latter would address the issue of residents who may have lost important paperwork or documentation during the disaster.
Norman said his team has “not received approval on the waivers yet,” but that he is “pretty confident” they will get approved.
In the meantime, he said he is encouraging Housing Authority residents who have lost their income or are struggling to pay rent to fill out a hardship form to receive assistance. Those forms are available at the Housing Authority offices and “posted outside everywhere.”
Norman also told BPR that the Housing Authority will “not be doing any evictions for rent until February.”
BPR also asked Norman if he had plans to continue the previous leadership’s plans to dismantle the Southside Community Farm.
He replied that the Housing Authority’s priorities have changed.
“We really want to focus on housing folks and providing great communities throughout Asheville,” he said. “I can’t say down the road who the next person is, but right now it’s not a priority.”
