Overhaul of Indianapolis Housing Agency underway after HUD takeover

An overhaul of the Indianapolis Housing Agency is underway. Local and federal officials said work to improve agency operations starts with basic record reconciliation.

This past spring the federal government stepped in to help right years of dysfunction and mismanagement at IHA. The agency is responsible for providing housing for low-income residents in Marion County.

Senior Policy Advisor to the mayor Aryn Schounce serves as a recovery monitor for the city. She said the first phase of work is to make sure landlords' information is current and they are being paid.

“There have been issues with receiving the correct payments for landlords and that this is the first phase to reconcile,” Shounce said.

A system outage from a cyber attack this year resulted in data loss that IHA has not been able to recover. This year's attack compounds on a similar cyber attack in 2022.

Shounce said a majority of the work since the takeover has been in getting basic systems functioning again.

“We still don't have access to that data, the IT infrastructure is still not where it needs to be, but we felt that we needed to act,” Shounce said.

A new online form will be sent to landlords currently in the IHA system, asking for up-to-date payment information for housing assistance paid through federal housing vouchers.

A representative from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, was named to help lead the agency overhaul. Recent efforts include a letter from IHA to landlords, to clarify they cannot evict tenants because of failure to receive IHA payments. 

A HUD team will work in partnership with local representatives to help secure current data. The cooperative agreement was announced in April by Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett.

The next phase of reconciliation will involve reaching out to tenants to make sure household information is updated and accurate.

“We will be looking to fund really a complete overhaul of the IT infrastructure,” Shounce said.

Property assessment and customer service improvement will also be part of next steps for the IHA.

City partners have also warned current and potential IHA clients of a scam that recently targeted Indianapolis residents.

Contact WFYI Morning Edition Newscaster and Reporter Abriana Herron at aherron@wfyi.org.

Contact WFYI City Desk Managing Editor Jill Sheridan at jsheridan@wfyi.org.