CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – After spending years searching for a new executive director off-and-on, the Clarksville Housing Authority now plans to form a committee to work hand-in-hand with an outside hiring firm to bring in candidates who may be a fit for the position.
This comes as CHA recently had two 9% tax credit applications approved for the redevelopment of Lincoln Homes, with the first provision of the redevelopment before the City Council this week.
Search for permanent director dates back 5 years
The Authority confirmed they undertook searches for a permanent director in 2020, 2021, 2023 and now in 2026. The CHA Board of Directors has engaged an executive search firm to help them with the hiring process. Previous boards also engaged with such firms in most.
Housing Authority board members are appointed and reappointed by the city mayor with staggered five-year terms, which means some newer board members have not been involved in all of these searches. The current CHA board members are Chairman Calvin Lockett, Vice Chair Mary Franklin, Trina Hill and Wayne Wilkinson.
Current interim executive director Dawn Sanders-Garrett has been with the CHA on a contract basis since Oct. 18, 2020, when she took over for Patricia Tyus, who left the authority earlier that year.
Since then, Garrett has overseen the day-to-day efforts of the authority, including the ongoing redevelopment of Lincoln Homes, which received two 9% tax credits toward phase 1 and phase 2 of the redevelopment in 2025.
Putting Housing Authority back in order
The Housing Authority confirmed that Garrett has continued to serve under a series of temporary contracts and arrangements since October 2020.
“She continues to serve at the pleasure of the Board and is expected to do so at least until a permanent executive director is retained and in place. Due to the complexity of the position, there may also be a transitional period that is necessary once a permanent ED is identified and retained,” said the Clarksville Housing Authority.
Garrett said she’s been working on a contract basis all this time because of the problems that the authority had upon her arrival. “They attempted on a number of occasions to identify an executive director, but this was beyond the scope of that position, because there were so many things wrong with the organization,” she said.
“I came to really assess the organization, and upon assessment, we discovered many gaps relating to their operations, their finances, their maintenance department, and the structural issues and conditions.”
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Garrett said she shared her findings with the board and told them a plan of action is needed, which they worked on together. “I shared with all the boards, but especially the first one, after my first 90 days, that it would probably take five years to deal with the entirety and complexities of the issues that were going on. First off, there was COVID, and all of the authorities were under orders to keep everybody in place.
“Besides the structural issues that existed in the organization, families also had to be right-sized. Meaning we had a lot of families in units that did not fit their family composition. So, for instance, say they were a long-time resident of Summit Heights and over the years, their children have grown up and gone off to college. One of the things we found was that we had a family originally that had a four bedroom and needed to be downsized to a three-, two- or one-bedroom, depending on their family composition.”
Garrett said they are still in the process of rightsizing due to the time constraints that come with the transition period for residents.
Former Housing Authority commissioner Steven Stroman said that when Garrett was brought in, he doesn’t believe any of the commissioners understood the depth of the issues they were facing. “It was contemplated that surely someone of Ms. Garrett’s expertise could come in and in 90 days at least get us to the point where we could hire someone to come in and do the heavy lifting,” Stroman said. “We found out pretty quick that, as an institution, we were failing.”
When asked if the full-time position as executive director with the Clarksville Housing Authority has ever been offered to her, Garrett said it hadn’t. “It was never offered; I think the scope of what my company has been able to bring to the organization lended itself to being exactly what I came here to do.”
Refinancing to put resources back into units
Garrett said the finances also had to be reprogramed to ensure that their resources went back into the units. She said they have made infrastructure improvements as well, including sidewalks, paving of developments, and they purchased new security cameras through grants.
In 2022, Garrett said CHA spent $800,000 toward putting their resources back into the units, then in 2023, 2024 and 2025, they invested more than $2 million annually into their units.
Improved health and safety inspections
Early on, CHA began two health and safety initiatives under Garrett, driven to get inside each of their units to determine what was needed in each. “We have moved to a new inspection system as HUD moved to a new inspection system. So far, we’ve had four Inspire inspections,” Garrett said. “Inspire is a whole new set of regulations to make sure our residents are safe and to make sure their units meet a certain standard.”
Garrett said the program has only been used for the past two years, and in that timeframe, after Lincoln Homes and Summit Heights were rated in the 30s and 60s, they improved their scores to around 75 and 87 in a year’s time.
Two tax credit applications approved
“It is rare indeed to receive not just one, but two 9% tax credit awards – in fact, to our knowledge, it has not occurred before in Tennessee,” said a statement sent from the Housing Authority. “The Lincoln Homes redevelopment project had to be fundamentally restructured … in order to meet specific scoring standards, set by the state and to qualify for the credits.”
Getting a tax credit is a first step toward the demolition and rebuilding of the 85-year-old Lincoln Homes housing project. The Housing Authority for the past several years has worked year-round with their development partner to prepare for the tax credit application process and to prepare various aspects of the master plan for the redevelopment.
“This process begins with a thorough review of the state’s particular requirements for awarding tax credits in that year – called a qualified allocation plan or QAP – and then tailoring the application to those requirements. The ultimate goal is to provide affordable rental housing in Clarksville for low-income families and special populations like seniors, those who are disabled, and those battling homelessness,” said the CHA.
This activity is followed by identifying additional funding opportunities and meeting other deadlines for the project, including CHA board approvals, resident engagement, and other briefings. If awarded, the team begins working on the various, federal, state, local and private sector deadlines necessary to close the project, said CHA.
Garrett said she was blown away when she found out they were being awarded the two 9% tax credits. “It meant, what some people believed couldn’t happen, we proved that it could,” she said.
“When you put in an application, it doesn’t mean you’re going to win. You have to spend a lot of time and some resources toward putting together a master plan,” Garrett said. “That meant working with a lot of architects, engineers and developers, and it’s something that can’t be done in a year’s time, two years’ time, anything like that.”
Garrett said as they continue to move forward, it will be a multi-phase project, which includes relocating families during redevelopment, and with the possibility of generating millions of dollars of investment.
Abandonment of portions of city roadways for redevelopment
The first provision in the redevelopment process is the abandonment of portions of Howard Street, Lincoln Drive and Ernest Shelton Drive. Currently, the street and drives are owned by the City of Clarksville, and a resolution, which was deferred last month, is before the City Council this week that would shift ownership to CHA.
Garrett said that this phase is important because of how it affects the master plan regarding traffic flow, parking, as well as demolition and the ability to move materials.
Previous City Council deferral, mayor’s comments
When the council first heard the provision in December, due to concerns from Mayor Joe Pitts and others, the City Council postponed the resolution. The decision to defer came after Pitts spoke on some of the concerns he has – not only with the timeline of this proposal, but with the Housing Authority itself.
“I have zero faith – zero faith – in the existing management of that organization,” Pitts said at the December meeting. “They have brought this to us at the 11th hour, in the 59th minute, and now pushing us to make a decision on something they should have talked to us about months ago.
“They talk about protecting the citizens; we’re protecting the citizens by defeating this resolution and making them come back to us with proper information, at the proper time,” Pitts said.
At the City Council’s executive session meeting on Tuesday, Councilperson Deanna McLaughlin said the council still hadn’t received information to educate themselves on what they’re voting on, and with this particular resolution, it’s one and done.
“This is city infrastructure; we have a responsibility to city taxpayers to make sure we know what we’re voting on,” she said.
Garrett responds to criticism on lack of information
Garrett said CHA wasn’t aware of being awarded the two tax credits until late September. “Then, we went about the business of the design,” she said. “Our board approved in late October, then we immediately set up the briefing with the mayor in November.”
After briefing faith-based leaders, CHA’s proposal then went through the Regional Planning Commission, before making it to the City Council. However, Garrett said the Housing Authority didn’t realize at the time that the proposal would go before the council so soon.
“The developer and I were at the Planning Commission meeting,” she said. “Our next steps were to start meeting with the council, start meeting with the county, just so they can be aware of the project.”
Now, the plan is for a representative, on behalf of CHA, to be in attendance at Thursday’s City Council regular session meeting, Garrett told Clarksville Now. “My focus is on continuing to identify partners, and we welcome the mayor and anyone else as a partner, because projects of this magnitude do not just take the Housing Authority, it takes all of our partners,” she said.
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