Street: PHA Board Won't Resign

Former Philadelphia mayor John Street said on Saturday the Philadelphia Housing Authority will not resign after HUD asked the five-person panel to quit.

Street is the chairman of the board of the embattled PHA and he says members will not abide by a request by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to resign, as they feel the action is "unwarranted."

Street said in an e-mail message Saturday that he has spoken to each of the five members and they "stand ready to fully cooperate" with HUD.

Two members earlier told The Philadelphia Inquirer that they had no plans to step down.

HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims said there was a need restore confidence and protect funding after the firing of longtime executive director Carl R. Greene and ensuing federal investigations.

The board said Greene used about $900,000 in public money to settle a series of sexual harassment allegations.

The PHA has been mired in scandal over the past year after Fox 29 discovered its now fired executive director, Greene, used PHA money to settle sexual harassment claims against him.

"Recovery will proceed much faster," Sims said, and there was a need to "restore confidence in the agency and to protect the funding for residents"

The PHA's taken a lot of heat since last fall when we found out fired Greene spent hundreds of thousands of PHA funds to secretly settle sexual harassment claims.