Housing failure bigger than one inspector

Section 8 rental housing inspector Kay Hawkins was fired this month after 11 years of working as an inspector in the Oxford Hills region.

The action suggests that she had "gone rogue" and was secretly approving unsafe rental housing conditions without the knowledge of her supervisors at Avesta Housing and the Maine State Housing Authority, the organizations which are responsible for for oversight of her work and the expenditure of tax dollars.

If the quality of her work was so bad as to merit a firing, then that fact should have been caught long ago. On the other hand, if the quality of her work was in line with the practices of her employers, then the blame runs far deeper.

In at least some cases, it appears that Hawkins made some very poor judgment calls by passing rental units that had serious health and safety issues.

But after her firing, Hawkins came forward and said that she has not been subject to discipline in the past. In fact, she said she has always been highly commended by officials within both Avesta and MSHA.

So it seems that these groups were either horribly inept at overseeing Hawkins, or they tacitly supported her judgment when she approved dangerous units.

There has clearly been a severe and systemic lack of oversight in the program. The MSHA has said that, in its "spot-checking" of Hawkins' work, it did not look at the specific units highlighted in the Advertiser Democrat article which uncovered the conditions.

Since that article was published, it has become ever-clearer that the units we saw were not anomalous. Rather, it has sparked many to come forward and report similar housing conditions throughout the Norway-Paris area, and beyond.

To suggest that the oversight of her work over the years never uncovered these problems strains credibility.

It appears the problem is finally being actively addressed; reinspections are ongoing and at least one landlord is reportedly not having her Section 8 vouchers renewed at the end of the year.

But landlords and low-level employees are, after all, just dancing to the tune that has been played for them.

MSHA and Avesta need to look at their own organizations, from the top down, to see who has been writing that music in the first place.

They have promised to assess and address the systemic problem as soon as they secure the safety of the tenants who rely on them.

That day cannot come a moment too soon. We call upon MSHA and Avesta to be thorough, transparent and fair when it comes to truly solving the problem – not for a few dozen Norway residents today, but for thousands of tenants and landlords across the state and far into the future.