Latest on mold issue in Wilmington Housing Authority public housing communities

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The Wilmington Housing Authority gave an update on Monday, January 9, to New Hanover County Commissioners on mold issues in the city’s public housing communities.

They also provided an update on residents displaced by the problem.

Wilmington Housing Authority Executive Director Tyrone Garrett says ninety displaced families have been placed in permanent homes, either returned to their original public housing unit, or have chosen a housing choice voucher and are living in a market rate unit.
The majority of the mold remediation is being done at Creekwood. There are also 24 units at Woodbridge that still need to be repaired.

WHA plans to start working on the Woodbridge units in the next two to three months, with another source of funding.

“I think the progress that we’ve actually made, if you really take a step back and think about where we were –just in August, where we still had 150 families outside their unit with no real plan of them actually returning and then we were able to get things started, create a new scope of work and have –you know, 90 families in a permanent residence as we speak right now, I think it shows that the effort of the housing authority over the last six months,” said Tyrone Garrett, Wilmington Housing Authority executive director.

The Wilmington Housing Authority hopes to have all of its residents out of temporary housing at a hotel by the spring.