By Mary Hladky
The City Council has appointed two Boca Raton Housing Authority apartment tenants to the authority’s board.
Council members selected Fabiola Bernier and Adel Hachmi at their April 12 meeting after they expanded the board from five to seven members in March.
Seven people applied for the two slots, an unusually high number that reflected heightened concern about Housing Authority operations.
Public housing residents and advocates have pressed for changes to safeguard tenants and give them a greater say in how the authority’s apartments — Dixie Manor at 1350 N. Dixie Highway and Boca Island East at 70 SE 11th St. — are run and how Dixie Manor is rebuilt.
The Housing Authority board is considering leaving the federal public housing program with the intent of gaining access to financing that would allow it to rebuild Dixie Manor and add more badly needed low-income housing.
Housing authorities across the country are considering or have taken similar steps because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is drastically underfunded and can’t pay for extensive renovation or new construction.
Bernier is a Dixie Manor resident who graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in anthropology in 2019. Her résumé says she is an administrative support professional and former teacher.
Hachmi is a Boca Island East resident who earned a medical degree in Syria and is applying for a medical residency in Florida after completing coursework to practice medicine in the U.S. He now works as a search engine evaluator.
Hachmi’s term will expire in 2023, and Bernier’s in 2024. Both could be reappointed to four-year terms.
Late last year, the City Council rebuffed Carol Wolfe, who had sought reappointment to the board, and replaced her with Lanette Wright, who served in the U.S. Marines for 30 years and lives in Lincoln Court near Dixie Manor.
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