Gateway Village Residents Frustrated Over Late Checks

Residents at Gateway Village have been voicing frustrations over delays in receiving their utility subsidies.

Gateway Village is a publicly-supported Section 8 development in Hillsborough. Residents at the apartments voiced concerns to WCHL last Friday that they had not received their utility subsidy checks, even as their bills came due or even past due.

Michael Harley is a resident at Gateway Village.

“The property managers have not [given] an indication to why the checks were late,” he says. “Gateway, the management, is saying that it’s fallen behind, [and they are] not showing too much regard in matter of the residents and their interests.

“So [the residents] don’t have to pay late fees, and so they can meet the bills and take care of their needs.”

Geoffrey Green is the Executive Director of Residence Service Programs at Preservation Management, who owns Gateway Village. Green says they complied with all regulations put forward by the Housing and Urban Development Handbook.

“The requirement is that the utility subsidy payments are to be provided to residents within five business days after we received those payments from the federal government,” he says. “And that was done in this case.”

The conflict seems to be in the fact that residents did not know the checks would be delayed this month. These payments are typically received by the property owner by the third day of the month, and turned into the hands of the residents by the eighth. This month, residents didn’t receive their checks until Saturday, March 14.

Green says the delay must have stemmed from the federal government sending checks to property owners.

“It must have been a slight delay for whatever reason,” he says. “But what I confirmed with our people here, is that payments were made within five days of when funds were received here.”

Residents of Gateway Village say it is not the fact the checks were late that is so bothersome. They say no warning was given that the checks would be late, so they would have been able to plan for the delay and make other arrangements to continue making payments on time.

“That’s a fair point and probably something that we could do better,” Green says. “And we’re actually having that discussion.”

Harley says that residents just want to be respected by the landlords.

Green told WCHL that the discussion over how to alert residents their checks would be delayed was being held on Monday afternoon. He said that he would follow up with WCHL as to the result of that discussion. As of this posting no update was given.