Dearborn’s affordable housing towers excel in federal inspection

Published Sept. 25, 2024

All three of the City of Dearborn’s affordable housing buildings have received overwhelmingly positive scores after inspection by the federal government’s housing authority, thanks to rehab and upgrade projects undertaken by the administration of Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud.

Kennedy Plaza, Townsend Towers, and Sisson Manor are federal housing buildings primarily serving non-Section 8, low-income, disabled individuals, as chartered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The City of Dearborn operates and manages all three properties. HUD performs routine inspections to assess physical conditions and quality-of-life amenities at such buildings, making the scores publicly available.

After two years of work, all three buildings now score above a 90 (out of a 100) in the HUD inspection, with Townsend increasing to 91 from 81, Kennedy increasing to 96 from 73, and the most significant improvement seen at Sisson, which went from a 58 to a 97.

Mayor Hammoud stated, “I am extremely proud of the work of our Housing team and the facility managers at our federal affordable housing buildings, which have led to drastically improving inspection scores and quality of life for our neighbors for the first time in years. Thanks to their dedication, Dearborn now utilizes federal housing scores only as a baseline, ensuring our standards go above and beyond those required by the federal government.”

Under Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud’s direction, the City began upgrading the buildings in 2022, making significant investments in the building lobby areas, elevators, painting, flooring, HVAC, laundry facilities, security, and more. The City also constructed offices for the Department of Public Works Housing Division to ensure that staff can better serve tenant needs. Since moving the Housing Division offices to Dearborn’s three public housing buildings, staff have managed to clear, on average, hundreds of requests every month. 

In addition to changes within each building, Hammoud led an effort to revamp the Dearborn Housing Commission, bringing in all new members, to oversee major quality-of-life improvements at each building and make sure they exceed federal standards for health and safety.

Hisham Elkhatib, Chair of the Dearborn Housing Commission, stated, “These much needed investments, overseen by our Commision and Executive Director Timothy Supinger, have ensured that all maintenance requests at our towers are fulfilled quickly. Our Housing staff operating inside of the buildings, addressing resident concerns and maintenance requests, has led to tangible changes and quality of life improvements for our residents.”

The City’s efforts also ushered in new resident services like exercise classes, computer lab areas and translation services, and new library programming, including transport to Dearborn Public Library branches.

These improvements have met increased occupancy at these buildings and a growing waitlist that is constantly updated.

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