Chattanooga Housing Authority wants to hire marketer

photo Inside the Chattanooga Housing Authority's board room Tuesday, the Rev. Leroy Griffith, top right, reads a resolution from the Westside Community Association challenging CHA's spending practices.

One of the city's largest landlords wants the public to know its financial status and the positive programs it offers.

The Chattanooga Housing Authority will contract with a marketing and public relations company or person who can create an online biannual report, including financial data and programming, for the housing authority.

The report will be up to 15 pages and include about two to four pages of audited financial information, according to an ad seeking bids.

CHA will take requests for proposals through Thursday. It wants to award a contract and begin services around December.

"We're looking for an array of possible services over the next year. One is the creation of a biannual report where we have opportunity to visibly get the financials on the street," said Betsy McCright, CHA's executive director.

The report will be just part of CHA's website upgrade that allows the housing authority to tell its own story, said McCright. It will highlight the agency's summer, upward mobility and self-sufficiency programs.

This is a way to "more effectively communicate with the public regarding Agency news and to increase CHA's presence on the Web," Mike Sabin, CHA's director of asset management, said in an emailed statement.

The change comes five years after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development put the housing agency on its troubled list for fiscal accountability. CHA used $1.2 million in restricted Fannie Mae loan proceeds and more than $788,000 in Housing Choice Voucher funds to cover operating expenses.

The agency laid off a third of its staff and operated under strict federal oversight, said McCright.

Now the housing agency is in good standing with HUD. It provides self-sufficiency and upward mobility programs to residents and partners with other agencies to house special-needs populations. The agency has 132 employees and 14 public housing sites with a total of 2,656 units. It also administers 3,568 Housing Choice Vouchers to provide housing.

This is the time that CHA is able to tell its own story and it should, said McCright.

"We have opportunity to present some of the positive things we're doing unnoticed by the community that are making a difference in the lives of our residents," she said.

Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6431.

Upcoming Events