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High staff turnover is threatening the care of residents at the Sunrise Metro public housing complex, while illegal drug use is widely tolerated, former employees of the Salt Lake City Housing Authority have alleged to its board.
The housing authority's Board of Commissioners is investigating the allegations, commissioners said Wednesday, and at least one commissioner is calling for a close look at the top managers of the complex. The allegations come after the Department of Veterans Affairs — also citing high turnover and acceptance of substance abuse — threatened to pull funding if the housing complex doesn't fix those and other problems.
"Based on what I'm seeing, I do believe there's a need for management change at Sunrise Metro," said commissioner Michael Clara, who said he's spoken to 21 people who have been fired or left in the last two years.
The complex opened five years ago at 580 South 500 West to provide supported housing for the chronically homeless, including veterans, many of whom are dealing with addiction or mental illness. The apartment complex follows the Housing First model which gets the homeless housing and then helps them work on challenges ranging from addiction to mental health problems with case workers based on site.
In an email sent to the housing board in August, former caseworker Jessica Morales said the high turnover isn't "due to the case loads or the work" but rather a "hostile work environment" created by the complex managers.
Management at the complex discouraged employees from reporting residents' drug use and overlooked the use and sale of marijuana, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, Morales wrote.
She asked the board: "How are case managers supposed to encourage residents to change their situations and seek out better opportunities for themselves if Sunrise is enabling them to stay in their old habits or form new ones?"
Morales said she resigned at management's request last month after working at Sunrise almost four years.
"New employees are advised against alerting authorities on any drug related concerns," she wrote.
Her concerns were backed by the VA, which in a Sept. 16 letter asked Sunrise to adopt a policy that allows case managers to report substance abuse "without fear of discipline or termination."
Another former case worker, Dave Schulz, pointed to a lack of training for new case workers.
"It really diminishes the services we can give," he told The Tribune. The homeless, meanwhile, "carry more of the trauma that's going on when case managers just disappear," he said.
Within two weeks' of Schulz firing, he said two other case managers also resigned. "It's a blight to the city that this is going on," he said.
Housing Authority Commission chair Dave Mansell said the board is investigating, but that management may not be able to do much if residents use drugs away from home.
"That's exactly what they're looking at," he said. But "the problem is ... [residents] can't do drugs on the premises, but if a guy goes down the street and gets a drug shot and comes back, he didn't do it on the premises."
If employees are being discouraged from reporting drug use, he said, "that needs to stop."
He said the complex consistently gets high marks in audits, and wondered whether the high turnover might be due to overly high expectations for new employees.
"The nature of the beast is to just have turnover," he said, though more than 20 people in 24 months "is an unusually high turnover in most of our minds."
The board has a regular meeting on Oct. 7 and a special closed-door meeting scheduled for Oct. 10 to sort through the problems.
"There's been a lot of accusations made, and the truth is, no one has heard the other side of this yet," Mansell said.
The VA gave Sunrise 30 days to fix seven major problems or it would pull funding. Out of the complex's 100 apartments, 20 are occupied by veterans whose housing is paid for by the VA. Mansell said policy changes have already been made to fix the problems.
Housing Authority Executive Director Bill Nighswonger declined to provide the exact policy changes, saying the VA would instead make an announcement.
The Salt Lake City mayor's office had no immediate comment.
Julia Lyon contributed to this report.
Twitter: @LindsayWhitehurst