Virtual Kudos to the Virgin Islands Housing Authority

Virtual meeting connects the Public Housing team with San Juan with the Virgin Islands Housing Authority representatives. VIHA team in St. Croix: From left, Lydia Hughes, Chief Operating Officer; Herminio Ortiz, District Manager, St. Croix East, and Troy Richards, District Manager, St. Croix, West VIHA team in St. Thomas: From left, Kimra Estrada, Leasing Supervisor; Carolyn Duncan, District Manager and Darryl Smalls, Director of Modernization and Development

The Virgin Islands Housing Authority (VIHA), recently returned to local control after a decade under HUD's receivership, has a new strategy to increase its rent occupancy. Their portfolio consists of 3,287 public housing units and 1,733 housing choice vouchers and they are aiming for full utilization.

Combining marketing, modernization, and leasing up technics into a fresh, unified strategy, VIHA is aggressively reaching out to the community, with a radio advertising campaign in both Spanish and English, and is partnering with a hardware store to provide gift certificates to those who would qualify to become residents.

The HUD public housing team in San Juan, which oversees the area, is very optimistic with the level of professionalism and hard work of the VIHA team in this effort and hopeful they will soon be successful in housing more families in the US Virgin Islands.

The San Juan team used the Southeast Network Occupancy Utilization and Overage Report for a recent virtual meeting and to provide feedback to VIHA.

Way to go TEAM VIHA!

###