Nancy Powell and her daughter rent a house in Wendell with help from a housing assistance voucher. Each month, Powell pays her share of the rent directly to her landlord and the Wake County Housing Authority (WCHA) is supposed to pay the other part.
The agency began making late payments last November, according to emails between Powell and her landlord that INDY viewed. The delays grew longer each month: the WCHA’s share of December’s rent didn’t arrive until January 9, and then January’s rent didn’t come until February 21. By April 7, when the landlord still hadn’t received March or April’s payments from the WCHA, he informed Powell—who was up-to-date on her own payments—that he might have to terminate her lease.
“I’ve been attempting to communicate with Wake Housing for some time now regarding issues with their payments for you, and they have been continually dodging me and ignoring me,” the landlord wrote to Powell…