A nonprofit offshoot of Little Rock’s Metropolitan Housing Alliance will join in a lawsuit between ousted housing authority commissioners and the city of Little Rock.
A circuit court judge decided Thursday to allow the nonprofit Central Arkansas Housing Corporation to jump in on the case expected to determine whether the Little Rock City Board of Directors acted properly in removing Leta Anthony and Lee Lindsey from their positions on the housing commission. The two were removed from the commission in September amid accusations of disorganized bookkeeping, failed audits and misplaced funds.
Thursday’s decision from Judge Cara Connors is a minor step in ongoing legal proceedings over the operation of the Metropolitan Housing Alliance, an organization charged with administering federal subsidized housing and housing assistance to low-income people and families in Little Rock.
Sylvester Smith, who is representing the two former commissioners, told Connors he did not oppose the motion to allow the nonprofit to intervene. The nonprofit was created by the Metropolitan Housing Alliance in 2006 to “facilitate the development, financing and construction of multi-family and single-family residential housing,” according to the housing authority website.
City Attorney Tom Carpenter, however, said the nonprofit didn’t have a place in the case.
Ultimately, Connors granted the motion to intervene and said the bylaws of each entity essentially state the same people are conducting the same duties. The organizations are inherently connected to each other, she said.
Attorney Rickey Hicks represented the Central Arkansas Housing Corporation Thursday and fielded questions from the judge about who is suing who. Is the Central Arkansas Housing Corporation suing the Metropolitan Housing Alliance — aka itself? Hicks said the answer was yes. Hicks argued because the housing authority does not have anyone on the commission who lives in subsidized housing — a federal requirement — they are in violation of federal policy and therefore acting illegally. The decisions they’ve made, including removing Anthony and Lindsey from the board of directors at the nonprofit, should not stand, he said.
The next hearing in the case has not yet been scheduled.