Interim housing director passed over

The on-again, off-again director of various local housing authorities will soon be leaving the public housing business. Again.

Carl Rowe, who has led the newly formed Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority since September -- among the largest public housing agencies in the United States -- has not been chosen to head the agency long term.

Instead, the housing authority board late Wednesday chose to offer the director's job to John Hill, who has worked as a deputy executive director of affordable housing for the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority in Virginia. He also was a manager at the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

Hill, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, will oversee the Southern Nevada agency, which has an annual budget of about $122 million, employs 250 people, and manages more than 3,000 public housing units and 9,700 Section 8 vouchers, which can be used to rent housing.

Rowe, who led the Las Vegas Housing Authority from 2006 until it merged with the Clark County Housing Authority to form the regional "superagency" last year, was not one of the two finalists chosen to compete for the job.

"I was disappointed," he said Thursday. "We have such a grand opportunity on a regional basis to really make a difference."

Rowe, who also is a Las Vegas business consultant, said he wasn't sure why he was not selected to lead the agency in the future.

"We had people more qualified than him," said North Las Vegas City Councilman William Robinson, who served on the committee that selected the finalists.

"He was high on my list, but I believe we did" find the right person, Robinson said Thursday.

Some members of the board had previously said they wanted to bring in new blood to lead the new agency.

Rowe also served as the director of the Las Vegas Housing Authority from 1990 to 1994 and led the Clark County Housing Authority on an interim basis in 2005 and 2006.

In 2008, Rowe blew the whistle on unsafe conditions at the Casa Rosa public housing complex, operated by the North Las Vegas Housing Authority. The move led to the eventual relocation of 76 families, some of whom had been living for years with failing stairways, mold, sewage leaks, wiring problems and non-working smoke detectors.

The Las Vegas Housing Authority, under Rowe's leadership, assumed maintenance of the property after officials with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found the North Las Vegas Housing Authority to be incompetently managed.

Robinson, who then and still chairs the board of the North Las Vegas agency, criticized Rowe for reporting the substandard conditions directly to city officials instead of to the board.

That past had nothing to do with Rowe being passed over for the regional job, Robinson said.

"I don't let my personal feelings stand in the way of good judgment."

Rowe has been vocal with his opinion that much public housing should be demolished because it concentrates poverty and blight. He believes such housing should be replaced with more housing vouchers that allow the poor to better integrate into the larger community.

Rowe will remain interim director until Hill takes over, he said. The latter man's salary has not yet been set. Rowe's annual salary at the agency is about $162,000, he said.

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.