MILWAUKEE — Former employees of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM) are reaching out to TMJ4 News after their jobs were eliminated due to a lack of funds.
We first learned that 20 employees were being laid off on Thursday.
On Friday, TMJ4 News was the first to report that HACM had misspent millions of dollars in federal funding and is working to figure out how to pay a pile of unpaid bills.
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-Housing authority financial woes cost 20 employees their jobs
Watch: 'It wasn't me, so why do I have to suffer?': Laid-off HACM employee shocked by money misuse
"I'm scrambling," said Alice Young, who was laid off Thursday. "I'm called in saying, 'Alice, we're going to eliminate your position, we're going to lay you off because we don't have funding.' And then the people in the room, I'm looking at them like, OK, so which one of you made that error? It wasn't me, so why do I have to suffer?"
TMJ4 News uncovered an email that said, without immediate changes, HACM could be bankrupt in less than two months. The email, obtained by our team, was from HACM's newly hired Chief Financial Officer and said the agency improperly used $2.8 million in Section 8 funding to cover things like payroll.
Young, who worked for five years, said she was shocked to be let go.
"I was in that office every day making sure that the tenants had all the paperwork they needed to remain on the program, assisted them mentally when they had stuff going on in life, and they absolutely didn't know what to do," said Young.
Another of the 20 employees laid off last week also emailed TMJ4 News, saying she was let go after working for the housing authority for 25 years.
"I feel like collateral damage," the former employee said. "Now my pension may be in trouble, while the people who caused this are sitting pretty because they bailed out!"
Young calls the layoffs "unfair."
Willie Hines, HACM's former executive director, retired on Jan. 1. He now receives more than $11,000 per month in pension payments for his 28 years with the city. Former employees say accountability and transparency need to be priorities under new leadership.
"Go to the top, go to upper management and figure out where the problem is, decrease some of those incomes or salaries, and then keep some of the people at the bottom who are doing all the work. That's the fair thing to do," said Young.
On Friday, HACM agreed to follow a recovery plan with HUD to try to fix the ongoing financial issues.
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