South Tucson Housing Authority tenants unionize, demand change in leadership

Tenants of the South Tucson Housing Authority (STHA), lined up to speak about their poor living conditions, a lack of compassion from the Housing Director Irma Gonzalez and to demand her removal from the position at a South Tucson Special Meeting on Sept. 29. They represented a newly formed tenant union to advocate for the interests of those living in STHA residential units.

The STHA is the local agency that manages public housing for low-income families, the elderly and people with disabilities. Located at 1713 S. Third Ave., the housing complex is made up of two buildings — one houses low-income families while the other is for elderly and people with disabilities. In total there are 172 apartments available for South Tucson residents, according to their website.

“This is a place where people with low income, people with disabilities, people of elderly age, people who require the most care, the most love and compassion,” Marisol Herrera, an organizer with Tucson Tenants Union, said. “(Gonzalez) has used their particular vulnerability as a way to increase her own power, abuse the power of the role… and the lack of oversight to achieve whatever goals she has, whether they be financial or personal.”

The Tucson Tenants Union began working with residents at the STHA in June, hosting an initial meeting to air resident grievances. They then had another meeting in August where they invited Gonzalez, City Manager Veronica Moreno and city council members. 

Among the allegations the tenants made were: 

• Video and audio surveillance at the complex, an area with a reasonable expectation of privacy, without notice, something the tenants union alleges violates Arizona laws. Surveillance in HUD or public and subsidized housing complexes in Arizona is governed by a combination of federal privacy guidelines and Arizona state criminal and property laws. HUD Security Standards include 24-hour CCTV with signs posted advising of the 24-hour surveillance. Arizona law makes it unlawful to record in areas where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a bathroom or bedroom. 

• A lack of a publicly accessible grievance procedure violates federal regulations and code.

• Nepotism benefiting Gonzalez, whom the union alleges is the sister-in-law of Robert Cota, the Housing Specialist — though CALÓ News has not been able to independently verify.

• Retaliation and harassment of tenants, such as verbal harassment and targeted surveillance. 

• Excessive fees for minor lease violations whose amounts are not supported by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). 

• Discrimination on the basis of disability in not being able to accommodate requests of residents during a three-week period of a broken elevator and in other instances. 

“My goal as Housing Authority Director has always been to provide residents with safe, stable housing and to treat people with dignity and respect,” Gonzalez wrote in an email to CALÓ News. “At the same time, I have a responsibility to administer the housing program fairly and address serious lease or policy violations when they occur. I recognize how significant those decisions are for residents, and I don’t take them lightly.”

Moreno wrote that she is working with Gonzalez to gather information and review individual allegations. They plan to share additional information after fully reviewing the matter. 

One tenant described poor living conditions, discrimination

Multiple residents spoke at the meeting about mold growing from pipes that haven’t been fixed, broken air conditioners during the hot summer months when temperatures reach nearly 100 degrees inside their apartments and a broken elevator with little notice for when it would be repaired. They also spoke on issues like people doing drugs on the property and surveillance cameras.

Nora Molina spoke to CALÓ News about her experience dealing with STHA asking her to move apartments despite an accommodation request for her claustrophobia, and pressuring her to move despite an accidental injury leaving her with second- and third-degree burns.

Molina has lived in the STHA complex since 2007 and in 2025 she was living in a two-bedroom apartment with her daughter and her two kids when the AC broke, leaving them with no comfortable solution for days. In that time, Molina’s daughter, who has a child with a disability, decided she’d had enough of the conditions and moved out. 

Molina notified the housing director that her daughter had moved out and she was classified as “overhoused,” a term used when a person is living in an apartment with more bedrooms than the housing authority determines is appropriate for the household size, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. 

Molina has a documented medical history of having claustrophobia, and when she was told she was downsizing, she requested reasonable accommodation, per the Fair Housing Act. Gonzalez gave them a form they had to get signed by a doctor, but when Molina turned the form in, Gonzalez said it was the wrong form and that they needed a sign-off from a mental health specialist, not Molina’s primary care physician. 

When Molina went back to get the correct form signed, “the doctor said that, ethically, she couldn't sign that letter because she could lose her job and her license,” said Nora Loreto, Molina’s daughter. “(The doctor) said Irma had contacted her and told her over the phone that those were the HUD rules.”

The HUD Handbook states that “a third-party verification form may be sent by the owner to an appropriate source of information, including but not limited to a physician, psychologist, clinical social worker, other licensed health care or the Veterans Administration.” It does not specify which type of healthcare provider must sign off.

Around that time, Molina and her family had taken a trip to Mexico for Memorial Day. A propane tank exploded during their vacation, giving Molina second- and third-degree burns along the right side of her body, especially her legs. She was taken to an emergency room and was hospitalized for two weeks, according to Loreto. Recovery involved temporarily being in a wheelchair and getting her wounds cleaned and re-gauzed every day.

Still, Molina was ordered by Gonzalez to move to a smaller apartment within 10 days to no longer be overhoused and follow HUD regulations.

“She told me she didn’t care about me getting burned, that it wasn’t her concern, that it shouldn’t matter to her,” Molina said. “I brought her letters and (documentation), but she wouldn’t accept it. She told me that she wasn’t interested in that.”

In the end, the city provided movers to help Molina move her belongings, though she faced another challenge when her apartment was not wheelchair accessible. Loreto said they had to fix the sidewalk so she could get into her new home. 

Molina feels that ever since she raised concerns over her living conditions, Gonzalez has become hostile to her and it has made it harder to peacefully live in the public housing complex. 

“Sometimes I sit at home and the depression hits me,” Nora told CALÓ News through tears. “If I stay there, well... I start thinking about all those things and the depression returns, so I go out to avoid feeling so frustrated and alone.”

At the Tuesday meeting, tenants echoed their frustrations, concerns and harassment by Gonzalez and demanded that the city manager and the city council hold her accountable.

“People need someone else with compassion, someone with a heart to be the director over the housing authority,” Herrera said. “We do not believe that Irma is capable of satisfying the requirements of this job and her continued presence adds to the stress, fear, anxiety and depression that tenants are feeling. She needs to be removed immediately.” 

But not all residents have had the same experience. 

Henderson Wilborn II moved into the complex in November 2025 and said he’s seen improvements, like fixing the roof and painting the building's interior and the outside fences. While he agreed a lot still needs to be done, he acknowledged the housing authority is working with limited resources and capacity. 

“You have to understand, funds are needed to supply the housing authority because they cannot maintain these properties without adequate funding,” Wilborn said at the special meeting. “They're doing the best that they can.”

Council response 

Vice Mayor Melissa Brown-Dominguez called for an administrative investigation by the city manager and said she would like to give Gonzalez an opportunity to respond to the allegations made against her while also taking into consideration what tenants have described. 

“Tenants have every right to speak up about their housing, but you don't get to skip every step that makes the process fair and then expect us to fire someone on your timeline based on only one version of events,” she said. 

Brown-Dominguez volunteers at the Housing Authority, bringing tenants groceries and meals each month. In her experience, Gonzalez has been the best director and understands all the “complicated” HUD regulations. She said Gonzalez has worked hard to bring the Housing Authority back into compliance with HUD, something which is directly tied to the release of funding. 

“I also have information that Councilor Aguirre and Mayor Valenzuela personally encouraged tenants to push for the director's firing and are themselves sitting here as members of this board and of our city council,” Brown-Dominguez added. “If this is true, that's highly concerning and I would like to know if that was true. Would you both please respond?” 

Aguirre said he doesn’t know where he’s heard that from and has never set foot on the property. Valenzuela didn’t answer during the meeting, but CALÓ spoke with her afterward.

“I have absolutely encouraged the South Tucson Housing Authority Tenants Union to organize and to set their demands,” Valenzuela told CALÓ News. “I stand with the tenants' union. I absolutely think that we need to question what's going on there; It's evident when you see this many people gathering that there's a problem.”

After the August meeting, she partially attended when she learned of the broken elevator; she went to talk to Gonzalez to ask whether she’d sent out notices for the elevator repair and “wasn’t received very welcomed to her office,” she said. “Her response was almost like, ‘my direct supervisor is Veronica, the city manager, and that's who I respond to.’”

Valenzuela said she would meet with the city attorney and city manager to see what they can do to address the tenants' allegations. 

Susan Barnett is an independent journalist in southern Arizona covering the immigrant and Latine community. She is a recent graduate from the University of Arizona, where she received her Master of Arts in Bilingual Journalism. She previously worked at La Estrella de Tucson and co-founded Tucson Spotlight.