17 September 2025
By Aliana Mediratta
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) — The head of the Housing Authority of New Orleans told a New Orleans City Council committee on Friday (Sept. 5) that Mayor Cantrell’s recent suspension from participating in federal contracts should not cause interruptions to funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Development.
HANO, which administers the city’s Section 8 housing voucher program and oversees subsidized and public housing developments, is almost entirely federally funded. Its anticipated budget for the fiscal year that begins in October is about $270 million, with all but about $1.5 million coming from federal agencies.
While the mayor appoints most of the housing agency’s governing board, HANO is not a city department over which she has direct operational or budgetary control. Executive Director Marjorianna Willman told councilmembers that the mayor does not typically have signatory authority over the agency’s grant funding and that the regional HUD office has assured HANO officials that operations should continue as usual.
Calling the letter announcing Cantrell’s suspension “highly unusual,” Willman said that her office is working with HUD to ensure that there are no issues down the line.
“We can all agree that funding in the city of New Orleans related to HUD is untouched,” Councilmember Joe Giarrusso said. “HANO has processes in place that are completely independent and apart from the Mayor of New Orleans.”
Councilmembers JP Morrell and Helena Moreno both called the letter “bizarre” and expressed concerns about how information about the suspension has been relayed to the public.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner posted the letter – which stated that Cantrell is prohibited from participating in any “procurement and nonprocurement transactions” – to X on Wednesday (Sept. 3). Turner also wrote that Cantrell had violated public trust and abused tax dollars.
The letter came just a few weeks after Cantrell was indicted by a federal grand jury for using city funds to cover up an affair with her bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie, whose signatory privileges were also suspended.
Cantrell appointed Vappie to the HANO Board in March 2022, and he resigned from his role in March 2023 amid scrutiny over their personal relationship before resigning from the New Orleans Police Department in June 2024.
New Orleans city government also receives significant funding from the federal government: about $400 million in the city’s 2025 budget. But Tyra Johnson Brown, the city director of housing policy and community development, said that the city is working on designating someone other than Cantrell to sign contracts with federal agencies.
“According to the [City] Charter, it would probably be the Chief Administrative Officer,” Johnson Brown said, referring to the role currently held by Joe Threat.
Morrell also criticized the process through which the letter was sent, stating that it created uncertainty for people who rely on federal funding to secure housing, including through programs such as Section 8 housing vouchers.
“We all became aware of this letter on [Sept. 3] via social media, which means the letter was circulated to the press, to the public, before I possibly could have seen it,” Morrell said, referring to the fact that the letter was mailed to his office after being posted publicly.
He added that he found it “equally bizarre” that his copy was sent to him at City Hall but the one addressed to Cantrell was sent directly to her house, despite addressing her capacity as mayor.
“There is an element of terror and political theater that is inherently wrapped around this letter,” Morrell said. “When you put a letter like this on the internet … every single voucher holder, every single landlord … you put all of them at notice and all at risk. It makes our collective lives much more difficult.”
This article originally published in the September 15, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.