The landlords of a Cleveland, Miss., apartment complex where a gas leak killed a family and displaced a community are facing consequences for the mismanagement of properties across the United States.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has banned Millennia Housing Management from all federal contracts for five years and has levied serious allegations of financial mismanagement at company ownership. Millennia is the company that owns and manages Sunset Village, the Section 8 apartment complex in Cleveland where dozens of families were displaced after a mother and daughter died in their apartment in 2022.
In a statement to the Mississippi Free Press on March 19, a spokesperson for the federal agency confirmed that “HUD has issued an official debarment order to Millennia CEO Frank T. Sinito and Millennia Housing Management Ltd. (Millennia), immediately prohibiting them from participating in any new business with HUD, its Office of Multifamily Housing Programs, including the Section 8 program, and with any federal government agency or federal programs for five years.”
The debarment order is perhaps just the beginning for Millennia. HUD confirmed that the agency “is pursuing separate enforcement actions and will take further action as appropriate and necessary.”
Read the full April 16, 2024 statement from a marketing firm representing Millennia.
HUD also shared an earlier statement that shed some light on the cause of Millennia’s debarment. “HUD found that Millennia Housing Management exercised financial mismanagement of tenant security deposit accounts and taxpayer funds providing housing assistance,” the spokesperson wrote. “As a result, HUD is holding them accountable by demanding repayment of misappropriated funds, seeking to impose civil money penalties on those responsible, and issuing a suspension and proposing debarment.”
That proposed debarment is now final.
In an April 16 statement to the Mississippi Free Press, Kendall Maggard, the manager of communications for a marketing firm representing Millennia, stressed the initial conditions of Millennia’s portfolio and the challenges of the contemporary economy and real-estate market.
“Regarding concerns with select properties, The Millennia Companies previously acquired the highly distressed GMF portfolio, spanning 39 assets and 4,600 units at HUD’s request. At the time
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