NSPIRE Wire is independent and not affiliated with HUD.
Event / Action Date:Aug 13, 2026
Newly obtained records show that the Charleston Housing Authority inspected only 28% of its units during the most recent quarter covered by the documents, according to an investigation by WCSC Live 5 News.
That figure does not automatically prove that the authority violated HUD’s annual inspection requirement. But it raises a critical question:
Were the remaining units inspected during another part of the year - or did some homes go without a documented inspection altogether?
WCSC reported that the share of Charleston Housing Authority units inspected during the first quarter has fallen by nearly half over a three-year period.
During the latest quarter examined, only 28% of units were reportedly inspected.
The latest number follows an uneven pattern documented during 2024. According to earlier WCSC reporting:
Approximately 77% of units were inspected between January and March 2024.
Approximately 33% were inspected between April and June.
Approximately 74% were inspected during the period from July through November.
The final reported quarter reached 82%.
Those percentages cannot simply be added together. Some apartments may have been inspected more than once while others may have been missed repeatedly.
To establish annual coverage, the authority must reconcile its records by individual unit—not merely count the number of inspections completed.
Under 24 CFR § 5.707, public housing authorities must self-inspect their properties, including every covered public housing unit, at least once annually.
The authority must retain those inspection results for three years and provide them to HUD upon request.
The timing is flexible. A housing authority does not have to inspect every unit during the same quarter. It can inspect different groups of apartments throughout the year and still satisfy the annual requirement.
That means Charleston’s 28% quarterly inspection rate is not automatically evidence of a federal violation.
The real compliance question is whether the authority can produce a unit-by-unit record showing that every covered home was inspected during the required annual period.
Property-wide percentages can create a misleading picture.
An authority could report hundreds of completed inspections while repeatedly visiting the same apartments and failing to reach others. A quarterly total does not reveal whether that happened.
A reliable annual inspection record should identify:
Every covered unit
The date of its latest inspection
The person who performed the inspection
Every condition identified
The corresponding work-order number
The required correction date
Whether the repair was independently verified
Without that reconciliation, an authority may know how many inspection forms were completed without knowing whether every resident’s home was actually checked.
The investigation also described continuing maintenance concerns reported by current and former residents.
One Gadsden Green resident reportedly described water entering through an exposed area of her ceiling whenever it rained. She said the problem had been reported months earlier but remained unrepaired at the time of the follow-up.
A former resident described a kitchen pipe leak, flooding and rodent problems.
According to the report, both residents’ units had passed their most recent recorded inspections.
That distinction matters.
An inspection may identify or document a condition, but completing the inspection does not complete the repair. A functioning system must connect every identified problem to a work order, deadline, completion record and final verification.
A housing authority can therefore maintain inspection records while still experiencing failures in maintenance response or repair follow-through.
Nathan Simms Jr., who became the Charleston Housing Authority’s president and CEO in April, told WCSC that the authority was working to hire a new director of property management and expand its maintenance operation.
Simms said the authority had 32 maintenance employees covering slightly more than 2,800 units.
He called the conditions presented to him unacceptable and encouraged residents to report problems through the authority’s online system, mobile application, maintenance telephone line or property office.
Those commitments now create measurable questions for the authority:
How many units received a completed inspection during the last 12 months?
How many units were inspected more than once?
How many units received no documented inspection?
How many deficiencies remain connected to open work orders?
How long are residents waiting for water, pest, electrical and other health-or-safety repairs?
Are completed repairs being independently verified?
Answers to those questions would provide a clearer picture than a single quarterly percentage.
The authority’s internal or housekeeping inspections should not be confused with a HUD-administered REAC or NSPIRE inspection.
HUD generally inspects a sample of units during an agency inspection. It does not enter every apartment at the property.
The annual self-inspection requirement exists in part to ensure that units outside HUD’s sample are still visited and evaluated.
HUD’s NSPIRE Terms and Definitions state that public housing authorities must perform self-inspections of all covered units at least annually - including units that are vacant at the time of inspection.
A sampled federal inspection and a complete annual self-inspection serve different purposes. One does not automatically replace the other.
Charleston’s experience is not merely a local story.
Any housing authority using rotating quarterly inspections should maintain a live, unit-by-unit coverage list. Management should be able to see immediately which apartments have been inspected, which remain outstanding and which deficiencies are still unresolved.
A percentage can look reassuring while concealing the very units most in need of attention.
The central question is not how many inspection forms were completed.
It is whether every household’s door was opened, every reported condition was documented and every necessary repair was followed through to completion.
HUD requires public housing authorities to self-inspect every covered unit at least annually. Charleston’s reported 28% quarterly inspection rate does not prove annual noncompliance, but it makes unit-level tracking critical. Without a reconciled annual roster, repeated inspections of some units can conceal homes that were never checked.
Charleston Housing Authority residents, authority leadership and board members, property managers, maintenance and inspection personnel, HUD oversight staff, contractors and public housing authorities that use rotating quarterly inspection schedules.
Records obtained by WCSC show that only 28% of Charleston Housing Authority units were inspected during the latest reported quarter. The figure does not alone prove a violation, but HUD requires every covered public housing unit to receive a self-inspection at least annually.
Editorial Desk
The NSPIRE Wire Editorial Desk publishes source-verified reporting and analysis covering HUD policy, NSPIRE inspections, affordable housing finance, development, transactions, and the people shaping the industry.
Know something we should know? Have documents, corrections, or related developments on this topic? Send an editorial tip to our reporters.
