“A constant stream of people all night buying drugs… It’s like McDonald’s here.”

Last Thursday’s Meeting at Romney Plaza

Utah Stories was invited to attend a tenant/HASLC executive meeting last Thursday at Romney Plaza to come and observe what the tenants’ concerns were and how they were being addressed by HASLC (Housing Authority of Salt Lake City) upper management. What we witnessed were the excuses for why HASLC executives could not offer security staff for Romney Plaza despite one tenant saying, “It’s a constant line of people all night now… It’s like McDonald’s here; they just drive in, get their drugs and go out.”

HASLC executive Kym Wilford asked the tenant complaining about drug activity: “Are you calling law enforcement?” One tenant leader said, “I called last night.” According to another tenant, the SLCPD knows their names, yet “One of them ODed in their apartment a couple of weeks ago. The cops were there, but nothing,” said a tenant who wishes to remain anonymous.

The anonymous tenant says that tenants in the building are letting both drug users and dealers into the building. “They all have the access code,” says one Romney Plaza tenant. Common to three different apartment buildings managed under the Housing Authority of Salt Lake City are safety concerns. Utah Stories has been contacted by tenants from Romney Plaza, Phillips Plaza or City Plaza, all with seniors who are complaining about the failures of upper management to address the numbers of homeless people, drug addicts and drug traffickers entering and exiting the buildings.

We reached out to SLCPD and spoke to PR Detective Ruff, who told us that the phone calls coming into dispatch are not frequent. He isn’t receiving as many calls from residents as he is from police in the area. The resident I spoke with at City Plaza told me tenants don’t frequently report activity to police because they are afraid of retaliation by the drug dealers in the building. With regard to Romney Plaza, Detective Ruff said that while there was a call to report the drug overdose, they were able to save the life of the person overdosing at Romney, but they are not getting calls reporting drug trafficking or drug usage activity. Just six weeks ago, one Romney Plaza tenant was involved in a shooting at Liberty Park. At the end of June, Phillips Plaza resident Ralph Hofmann was murdered in his apartment by an unauthorized resident.

Nancy Andersen said she doesn’t frequently call the police regarding drug trafficking because “I’ve gotten tired of calling in when the police do little to nothing.” According to Andersen and at least three other residents at Romney Plaza, drug activity continues, and homeless drug addicts continue to sneak into the building and buy drugs in and around the facility.

The Transformation

Within the next few weeks, Phillips Plaza and Romney Plaza are refinancing debt by changing their facilities over from traditional public housing to a RAD/Section 18 structure using Project-Based Section 8 vouchers. The Housing Authority approved submitting a financing plan to HUD in 2026. RAD/Section 18 can provide higher federal contract rents, which can support substantially more financing for renovations. HASLC will also turn over management of both Romney and Phillips Plaza to private management companies.

The planned work, as part of the reinvestment, includes roof and cooling-system improvements, while HUD has separately awarded $250,000 for security improvements at Phillips Plaza and Romney Plaza. I asked Zac Pau’u about investing in additional security. He says that they cannot afford to invest further in security guards because those costs run anywhere from $17,000 to $20,000 per month. The follow-up question I asked Zac Pau’u was, “What about hiring a retired police officer to come and walk through the building for a few hours every night to ensure that no drug activity or unauthorized people are in the building?”

His response: “There is a certification problem with that. We had a retired police officer living here, but we have to ensure they are certified.”

Major questions remain: How will the RAD conversion help to mitigate or eliminate drug use and drug trafficking in the facilities?

“I love living here, but I can smell the drugs all of the time,” said one resident. “They are using drugs and smoking drugs all of the time. They made my dog sick, and I’ve been getting sick. My dog had these big black streaks coming from his eyes,” said one resident.

Will continual problems with the homeless population entering the building and sleeping in fire escapes continue? Residents who we spoke to on 9/14 say the homeless population still enters and exits all of the time.

HASLC CEO Dan Nackerman still has yet to provide us with any answers to these questions. He is no longer responding to our emails.

Background Information on the Story So Far

Our now four-month investigation into Phillips Plaza began before the murder of 72-year-old resident Ralph Hofmann by his lover/roommate, 30 years his junior, Bentley Scow. While the details were gory and unsettling, there was something even more unsavory happening prior to the murder.

According to residents we spoke to at Phillips, they were being ignored about safety concerns, not just regarding Ralph’s criminal, drug-addict unauthorized roomie, but also about a band of highly paid administrators ignoring repeated warnings that a building manager was neglecting her duties while stripping away the rights of the residents and dismantling the seniors’ community at Phillips Plaza.

We will return to this, but something about this story has kept me puzzled, and it has to do with the lack of other local media curiosity. We sent our story and four-minute mini-documentary about Phillips to 12 leading media outlets. Zero had any interest in covering this story. So I turned on local news to see what was more important: car accidents; the LDS temples; San Juan School sees an increase in reading; Taylor Frankie exits Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. And yes, I get it: Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is more sensational and interesting than failures in the safety and security at senior housing facilities, but come on, local media—no interest in drug addicts doing business in senior housing whatsoever?

But this morning I received a phone call from a reporter at Fox 13 News, and it turns out that Suzanne Stevens at Fox wants the story, and they are going to do some reporting on the massive failure of HASLC in keeping their tenants safe from the free flow of drugs and drug dealers in their buildings.

To be accurate, the local media hasn’t completely ignored this story. They widely reported on the traumatic death of Ralph Hofmann by Bentley Scow; they just never reported that it happened at Phillips, nor did they report on the security failure. The big question the media wasn’t asking was: Why were the homeless in the area given access and free rein to come and go as they please? Why are drug dealers allegedly selling drugs in the building and causing tenants to become sick through exposure to meth and fentanyl?

Fox 13 did also ask, “Why was the air conditioning going unrepaired for the entire summer?” They didn’t ask, “Why didn’t tenants have hot water all winter?” But it is encouraging to see this local media movement into this very important matter.

Recap of the Most Pressing Housing Authority of Salt Lake City Allegations

The most serious allegation, which allegedly contributed to the death of Ralph Hofmann, was the revolving door of unauthorized homeless drug addicts entering and dealing drugs and smoking drugs in the building. These concerns received responses like “unsubstantiated,” as HASLC CEO Dan Nackerman responded to Susan Bigelow one year before the murder of Hofmann.

Bigelow’s line-by-line account reads:

• Allowing street people to access the bathrooms in our lobby. (This is supposed to be a secure building.) (Several tenants now say the former building manager was freely allowing her homeless cousins to come and stay in the building as they please.)

Nackerman’s response on May 20, 2025 (again, one year prior to Ralph Hofmann’s murder):

Not substantiated. We may find a solution to persons sneaking into the bathroom… perhaps a coded door. There would be no reason for HASLC staff to let strangers into the building.

Residents claimed that they had warned the Housing Authority for months about unauthorized homeless people entering the building, drug activity, poor management, discontinued wellness checks and deteriorating conditions. Residents also reported serious maintenance problems, including air conditioning and hot water not working for months, all of which has been verified.

According to an inside source, HASLC’s hiring practices are not open to the public, but they “often hire people who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.” “Things began to go downhill right after Dan Nackerman was hired.” This comes from someone who worked at HASLC for over 30 years. And regarding Phillips Plaza’s manager, Daniella Delgado, this anonymous source said, “Someone was definitely protecting her.” He added, “They are actively trying to get people to retire or quit.” This allegation has been substantiated by the fact that the current building managers at both Romney and Phillips Plazas are temporary workers.