Millennia Housing Management is bowing out of the Section 8 housing business and selling the majority of its government-subsidized apartment complexes. In response, housing advocates are pressuring the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to make sure responsible landlords take over the Ohio-based mega-landlord’s massive Section 8 portfolio.
HUD last month told Atlanta Civic Circle it had barred Millennia and its chief executive, Frank Sinito, from any further contracts with the federal government for five years, citing “financial mismanagement.”
But last week the controversial company told Cleveland.com that it decided over a year ago to unload its multifamily affordable housing properties and instead “focus on its hospitality, market-rate [rental] and commercial portfolios.”
Millennia’s pivot away from housing low-income tenants has prompted its critics to ask HUD what will happen to the dozens of Section 8 properties it owns nationally, including Forest Cove Apartments, the infamous southside Atlanta complex that the city had condemned in December 2021 and is now demolishing.
In an April 2 letter to HUD, the Millennia Resistance Campaign — a national coalition of tenants, lawyers, and housing advocates — urged the federal agency to carefully vet potential buyers before authorizing Millennia to sell its assets. HUD must sign off on the sale of any property that receives Section 8 subsidies.
“These sales provide a new opportunity to change course, and we seek a partnership with HUD to preserve and improve these properties for current and future families by ensuring they are transferred to capable and responsible buyers,” the group said in the letter.
The Millennia Resistance Campaign exhorted HUD to direct Millennia to sell its Section 8 portfolio to multiple entities, due to the mammoth task of remediating the properties.
“Millennia’s poor stewardship of the portfolio demonstrates that HUD should make it a priority not to approve this or other large portfolios to a single buyer,” the letter said. “Even a responsible preservation buyer would struggle to turn around this group of properties.”
Millennia bought Forest Cove and dozens of other government-subsidized complexes from another mega-landlord, Global Ministries Foundation, after HUD in 2016 ordered Global Ministries to divest its low-income housing properties after years of mismanagement and neglect.
“As Millennia notes often, it acquired many of its notorious properties through the purchase of the Global Ministries portfolio that included severely troubled assets,” the Millennia Resistance Campaign wrote to HUD. “Many of these assets had years of deferred maintenance and needed a deep investment of resources in order for the housing to be safe and habitable for the families who lived there.”
Remediating all those distressed apartment complexes to livable conditions proved too big a lift for Millennia, the letter suggested. The coalition doesn’t want Millennia’s transfer of ownership for its Section 8 properties to perpetuate the deterioration of critically needed affordable housing.
HUD, however, told Atlanta Civic Circle in a statement Wednesday that it would be “premature to speculate on the nature or timing of any property sales.” The sale of any individual Section 8 property or entire portfolio presents “unique,” circumstances, it added.
“Thus, comparisons between the circumstances related to Millennia’s actions and those of Global Ministries, Inc. would be neither prudent nor useful,” the agency said. HUD noted that it “has not required Millennia to sell properties in its portfolio,” as it did with the former Section 8 landlord.
The Millennia Resistance Campaign letter emphasized the importance of active HUD oversight when reviewing Millennia’s proposed property sales. The coalition added that Millennia’s tenants should play a role in deciding who can purchase their complexes.
Relatedly, the tenant advocates again pushed HUD to investigate Millennia for negligent management, as well as “other problem owners with a pattern of failing to maintain HUD housing.”
HUD told Atlanta Civic Circle last month that the agency “is pursuing separate enforcement actions and will take further action as appropriate and necessary,” in addition to the five-year ban on Millennia doing business with the federal government.
That statement came almost a year after HUD’s inspector general, Rae Oliver Davis, declined to tell Atlanta Civic Circle whether the agency was formally investigating Millennia over the condition of its Section 8 properties. Tenant advocates have been demanding an investigation since at least 2021, when the mega-landlord bought Forest Cove.
Read the Millennia Resistance Campaign’s full letter below:
Forest Cove was a Heck Hole and Needed to be torn down. No amount of rehab would save that place. However I find it disturbing that “Housing Advocates” demand a seat at the table along with the residents on who should be allowed to purchase Millennias portfolio.
I have a ideal the “Housing Advocates” and tenants in each complex can form a Non-Profit holding/management company and Co-opp there respective apartment complex. Now the tenants(owners) own where they reside make the decisions and can only blame themselves when things go wrong. This would be a great experiment in I told you so. Operating residential real estate is not easy and requires formal knowledge. I’m sick of Tenants demanding the private sector take care of them. I’m sure the Housing Advocates could raise the money to form a Co-opp. You would think the city of Atlanta would develop and manage the property but they know how difficult it is running section 8/tax credit property. Mixed income developments don’t work long term, poverty always re-concentrates. High opportunity areas are carefully cultivated by the residents who reside there and share the same values,moral and ideals. Moving people in too the contrary causes problems and flight…
They sure can unite to demand you take care of them but not unite to improve there neighborhood, change destructive behaviors and take interest in the local school.
Bring Back public housing.
Like anyone wants to take on these headaches.
People getting everything for free, want more, and hold everyone to standards they’ve never in their lives met.
Wow! How nice it must be for both of you to be able to bash the residents of low-income housing. Apparently, you nor anyone you know have ever needed a helping hand. I, personally, do not demand that my housing wants/needs be to standards that no one else could measure up to; but I do expect it to be maintained to a standard that would be acceptable to the average person living in this country. Apparently, you think we residents of low-income housing should be grateful for whatever ‘crumbs’ we are thrown by you or the government!