Syracuse Housing Authority board approves early exit for Bill Simmons

The Syracuse Housing Authority board voted 4-3 to let Executive Director Bill Simmons leave early, closing out a year of public criticism and setting up a likely buyout of the final year of his contract. Simmons had been scheduled to serve until October 2027, but the board’s narrow vote opens the door to a faster transition at an agency that sits at the center of Syracuse’s public-housing policy, redevelopment work and tenant relations.

That change matters most at the East Adams Neighborhood Transformation, where the authority is helping steer a $102 million Phase I project on the former McKinney Manor site near downtown Syracuse and the I-81 corridor. The plan calls for 132 new all-electric homes, including 117 apartments affordable to households earning up to 60% of area median income. Sixty-three of the units will be supported by Section 8 project-based vouchers administered by the Syracuse Housing Authority, and residents temporarily displaced during construction are guaranteed a right to return under the federal Uniform Relocation Act.

The dispute over Simmons built over months of friction with City Hall. In February 2025, then-Mayor Ben Walsh publicly criticized Simmons at an SHA board meeting over missed deadlines tied to the East Adams work. In March 2025, Interstate 81 project director Joe Driscoll called for the board to remove Simmons after arguing that missed deadlines and misinformation had damaged collaboration on the Children’s Rising Center, a proposed $32 million part of the broader housing remake. SHA disputed that it had missed any deadlines, keeping the fight alive as the redevelopment moved forward.

The board itself has shifted around the fight. The SHA board has seven members, and Mayor Sharon Owens’ May 2026 appointment reportedly gave her four new appointments on the board. The vice chair also resigned in May, deepening the turnover before the 4-3 vote to approve Simmons’ early exit. In November 2025, newly elected board chair Christopher Montgomery said he was “comfortable” keeping Simmons in charge, underscoring how divided the board had become even before the latest vote.

For tenants and partners, the immediate test is whether the transition improves execution on the ground. East Adams Phase I already broke ground on the first new apartments in December 2025, and state officials said the old McKinney Manor complex carried more than $17 million in deferred maintenance. The next leader will have to keep the 132-unit redevelopment moving, protect the 63 voucher-supported apartments, and rebuild trust with residents who have watched the authority’s leadership fight spill into the future of their housing.