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Yvonda Bean, CEO of the Columbia Housing Authority in Columbia, South Carolina, has been hired as the new leader of the Indianapolis Housing Agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Tuesday.
Bean, whose resume boasts turnarounds of troubled housing agencies, will take the new job Feb. 17, less than a year after the IHA was placed under federal management.
IHA, a federally-funded government housing agency, traditionally receives board and chief executive appointments from city leadership and administers funding to house 20,000 low-income individuals across the city. However, since last April, the agency has been under the control of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through a cooperative agreement signed by Mayor Joe Hogsett that included a joint search for a new chief executive.
Bean announced in a press release from the Columbia Housing Authority that she would be leaving after nearly six years. Bean said the IHA is “currently facing a crisis of public trust.”
“My experience navigating the recovery of the Lafayette (Louisiana) Housing Authority as the CEO in 2016 when they were in receivership, coupled with my experience at the once troubled Columbia Housing Authority, has prepared me for the rare opportunity to lend my talents to help restore Indianapolis Housing Agency,” Bean said in her written statement.
At an April press conference, HUD Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Richard Monocchio detailed financial and operational disarray at IHA, including dilapidated unit conditions, a waitlist that did not move, rent that was not set properly and resident income that was not assessed properly. About 1,500 of 9,000 available housing vouchers weren’t being used as the waitlist stalled.
Further, an investigation by Mirror Indy found that IHA sometimes housed fewer people than it had funding for, at times leaving Indianapolis residents homeless.
The federal management agreement dissolved the nine-member IHA board of commissioners and set off a multi-year process of evaluation and reorganization of the agency.
According to a HUD news release, Bean has 25 years of experience in executive leadership in affordable housing, where she has “built a distinguished career marked by a resident-focused, HUD-compliant approach and a strong record of operational excellence.”
Bean joined Columbia Housing in 2019 amid controversy after two public housing residents died from carbon monoxide poisoning. That property was condemned, resulting in the displacement of 400 residents. During her tenure, the organization established more than 400 new public housing units, according the organization.
Before leading Columbia Housing, Bean served as CEO of the Housing Authority of the City of Lafayette in Louisiana. Under her guidance, the agency overcame HUD supervision and achieved significant growth, operational stability and financial health.
In Indianapolis, she will replace Willie C. Howard Garrett, who was named interim CEO by HUD last year. Garrett, a HUD employee, was chosen to lead the agency until the federal department and Indianapolis leaders selected a long-term CEO.
Hogsett said in a written statement that he was pleased with Bean’s appointment: “I look forward to seeing the ways in which her expertise from serving more than two decades in public housing, including the recovery of two troubled housing agencies, will now be utilized to support the residents of IHA.”
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