L.A. County housing chief fired
Supervisors decline to say why Sean Rogan was dismissed from $229,000-a-year post.
Los Angeles County supervisors have fired Sean Rogan, the head of the county’s housing and community development programs, but offered no public explanation.
After a closed session Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors announced that it had dismissed Rogan from his $229,000-a-year post as executive director of the combined Housing Authority and Community Development Commission.
Board Chairman Mark Ridley-Thomas said through a spokesman Wednesday that he was not available to comment. A spokeswoman for the Housing Authority said Rogan was not at work Wednesday. He did not respond to a message left for him there.
The dismissal, which comes as the county is gearing up its spending of Measure H funds to combat homelessness, caught the homeless housing community off guard.
“We haven’t heard anything,” said Tonja Boykin, chief operating officer of the Weingart Center. “Everyone is curious.”
County officials had not yet named an interim director. A spokesman for the county’s chief executive office confirmed Rogan’s salary but declined to answer other questions, citing the county’s policy of not commenting on personnel matters.
According to its website, the Housing Authority administers the county’s Section 8 program, which provides federal rental subsidies to about 23,000 families, and manages 3,229 units of public and other affordable housing.
The Community Development Commission is the successor to the Community Redevelopment Agency, which was dissolved in 2012 along with all the state’s redevelopment agencies as part of Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget recovery program.
It manages the county’s homeless and housing fund, construction projects including residential developments, and a housing locator.
The two agencies are independent of the county but fall under a commission consisting of the Board of Supervisors. A separate housing commission advises the board.
Rogan’s name was removed from the two agencies’ websites Wednesday.
A biography that appeared on the Housing Authority website earlier in the day said that since Rogan’s appointment in 2009, the agencies “have been rated as high performing agencies by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and continue to deliver award winning projects and programs.”
It credited Rogan with leading the development of new affordable and permanent supportive housing, expanding the number of vouchers for the poor and homeless and developing parks, libraries and community centers.
Although the two agencies are deeply engaged in the county’s homeless programs, the vacancy will not directly affect leadership of the Homeless Initiative, which is part of the chief executive office.