MILWAUKEE, Wis. — At risk of bankruptcy and illegally using federal dollars.
That's the new reality for the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM) according to the agency's chief financial officer (CFO).
On Friday, TMJ4's Jenna Rae broke the story on HACM's financial woes.
Since then, we have heard and seen the community outcry. Posts on X and callers into the Tory Lowe Show on 101.7 The Truth asked where and when accountability was taking place.
"Who do we go after, and who do we vote for to get these people that really care," one caller said.
"Where is the police at, where is the feds," Lowe asked.
"Where is our Mayor? If I go home from work and watch the news and he ain't on the news talking about this," another called added.
In December, HACM's director, Willie Hines, stepped down. Shortly after, we learned the agency was deemed "troubled" for not providing high-quality housing and improperly using its funds.
Last week, we learned from HACM's CFO that the agency was illegally using Section 8 federal funding to pay its own employees. We also learned 20 employees were laid off because of the misappropriation of funds.
Watch: Mayor Johnson finally answers questions about housing authority financial woes
With all of this, for months, TMJ4 has been trying to get answers from Milwaukee's Mayor, Cavalier Johnson.
"Since 2019, they've [HACM] been using Section 8 funding to pay for its own employees salaries, how long has your office known about this," Rae asked Johnson.
"You broke the story that you just mentioned, and that came about because after the new people that I appointed to the housing authority board, the changes that have happened over in the housing authority, the new CFO was able to go in and dig that information up, so that became new to us," Johnson replied.
Johnson's talking about the new board members who were approved before the turn of the year.
Appointments previously criticized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"I'm saying that we've been making positive change in order to address issues at the housing authority," Johnson said.
"You also said that you had confidence in Willie Hines for several months, and he was at the helm of this organization. The CFO is calling the misuse of millions of federal dollars illegal. What do you have to respond to that and is the DA or the FBI involved," Rae asked.
"Well, I think Jenna, that, I think you've probably been provided with it, if you haven't we'll make sure that you're provided with the timeline on when this sort of, these incidents started to happen and when they were uncovered. Thank you," Johnson explained.
We're told the misuse of funds happened from 2019 to 2022 and that the damage was already done by the time Hines took over as executive director and before Johnson was Mayor.
We have yet to see the documents that provide that timeline though and are working to get them.
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