SAN ANTONIO – The executive director of the Housing Authority of Bexar County resigned months after a KSAT 12 Defenders investigation revealed that less than a fifth of all applicants to a COVID-19 rental assistance program had received any sort of help.
Tammye Trevino tendered her resignation to the agency’s board of commissioners during its meeting in January and worked for the last time on Friday, HABC’s newly appointed interim director confirmed via email Tuesday.
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The interim director, Terry Trevino, took over Monday. She is not related to Tammye Trevino.
A Defenders investigation in late October found that only 17% of people who had applied to the county’s multi-million dollar Temporary Rental Assistance Measure (TRAM) had received funds.
The program was put in place in early 2020 to help Bexar County residents whose incomes were negatively impacted by the pandemic.
‘Very frustrating’: Renters who sought help from Bexar County describe disorganized process
County records provided to the KSAT 12 Defenders last fall included complaints from applicants who said they had to repeatedly submit information already provided to the county, had difficulty reaching staff to check on the status of their application and left repeated messages and never heard back.
Tammye Trevino called the program rushed and blamed many of the issues on county staff being forced to implement it within a span of four to five weeks.
As of Oct. 1, only 17% of applicants to TRAM, 642 households in all, had received any sort of rental assistance, according to records provided by Bexar County.
Tammye Trevino, at the time, pointed out that more than half of all applicants were disqualified because they were not geographically eligible to receive help.
Over 300 applicants were denied for other reasons, including not being able to show that their income had been hurt by the pandemic.
As a comparison, however, the city’s emergency housing program, administered by its Neighborhood and Housing Services Department, assisted 64% of all applicants since the start of 2020, according to figures updated as of mid-October.
Its program, which saw a more than ten-fold increase in applications after the pandemic started, also provides help with mortgages and utilities.
Tammye Trevino was appointed interim director of HABC in 2017, after the previous director resigned amid questions about the day-to-day operations of the agency.
Records that year showed its operations coordinator tried to arrange a large raise for herself, 10 weeks after starting her position.
The 9.9% pay increase would have taken effect while the woman was still in her 90-day probationary period and it would have gone against HABC policy, which stated that salary increases cannot be greater than 5 percent.
The raise did not appear on a board agenda for possible approval.
Tammye Trevino’s early tenure was also not without issues.
A 2018 Defenders investigation found that Tammye Trevino was overpaid thousands of dollars per paycheck and took more than two months to notice the accounting error. Tammye Trevino later paid $9,789.95 back to the agency, records show.
“I was in the middle of a move, and so I was living out of boxes. So it did take awhile for me to realize I had more money in the bank than I probably should have,” said Tammye Trevino during an interview at the time.
HABC officials said the overpayments were exacerbated because the agency’s then-finance director refused to amend Tammye Trevino’s pay unless directed to by the board.
The revelation of Tammye Trevino’s overpayments came while she was one of eight applicants to become HABC’s permanent executive director.
HABC’s board later removed Tammye Trevino’s interim tag and named her permanent executive director.
Her exodus comes despite an audit released to the Defenders last month that showed HABC was in compliance with its programs and operating efficiently. The agency has so far not released a follow-up audit related to credit card expenditures, however.
Terry Trevino is the fifth person since 2015 to serve as the agency’s director in a permanent or interim capacity.