Chicago Housing Authority backs off ban on contracts with commissioner’s daughter

The Chicago Housing Authority reversed course after moving to permanently block the daughter of longtime CHA Board Commissioner Debra Parker from continuing to do business with the agency, records show.

Lovie Diggs faced what the CHA calls permanent debarment after she was arrested, charged and entered a guilty plea in Cook County Circuit Court, according to court records and CHA documents.

But her lawyer appealed to CHA executives, and documents obtained through an open-records request show that the agency has cleared Diggs to get more public contracts from the country’s third-largest housing authority.

Diggs’ company has been paid more than $1 million by the CHA, records show. WBEZ and the Sun-Times revealed in October that Diggs was one of three agency contractors with close personal ties to Parker.

The other two companies are owned by Parker’s sister and longtime boyfriend. The three firms have been paid a combined total of nearly $22 million by the CHA. Parker — who has been a commissioner since 2018 — denied having anything to do with that success.

But all three have faced scrutiny from the office of the agency’s independent inspector general, according to CHA records and interviews.

In the case of Diggs’ company, Lavi Decor and Cleaning Co., the problems began after Diggs was arrested by Chicago police in February 2023. She was indicted by a Cook County grand jury for allegedly using another woman’s identity to get more than $5,000 in merchandise from the Bob’s Discount Furniture store in Calumet City.

That case was closed in 2024, with Diggs entering a guilty plea to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct count. She received a year of probation and an order to stay away from the furniture store, but court records show prosecutors agreed to drop a felony identity theft charge against her as part of the plea deal.

The office of the housing authority’s inspector general, Kathryn Richards, conducted an investigation and concluded that Diggs’ legal issues were cause to block her from doing business “on a permanent basis” as a prime contractor, subcontractor or supplier on any CHA deal.

In July, the CHA’s contracting department served Diggs with a “notice of proposed debarment,” informing her that “adequate grounds exist” to ban her personally — and also cut off any potential for new business with the agency for Lavi Decor and any other company that Diggs might own or have a significant role in running.

The following month, a lawyer for Diggs filed a protest with the CHA’s Department of Procurement and Contracts and with the agency’s law department. Diggs’ attorney, Richard Fenbert, noted that Diggs was not convicted of a felony and actually entered a guilty plea to Class C misdemeanor. Fenbert also wrote that Diggs satisfactorily completed her probation a year after her guilty plea.

“Consequently, a judgment did not enter on her criminal record and her case was discharged without a criminal conviction,” Fenbert wrote on Aug. 6. “She will be eligible for expungement of her arrest and court records in two years.”

On Oct. 20, Ryan Smith, the CHA’s senior assistant general counsel, told Fenbert that the agency was willing to “amend its proposed debarment” and asked if Diggs and Lavi Decor instead would accept a voluntary suspension of 18 months.

Ten days later, though, the CHA notified Diggs she would not face any punishment.

“After further review, CHA has decided to cancel the proposed debarment proceedings,” wrote Sheila Johnson, the housing authority’s deputy chief procurement officer. “Your participation in the program will continue uninterrupted from the date of this letter provided you abide by CHA’s rules and regulations.”

The inspector general says the Circuit Court clerk’s records had erroneously showed Diggs was convicted of a felony. But Richards continues to assert that Diggs’ misdemeanor plea deal placed her afoul of the CHA procurement policy. Richards noted in a report issued last month that the policy allows the agency to ban a contractor for “fraud, embezzlement, bribery, theft, deception, misrepresentation, indictment, felony conviction” and other reasons.

Richards wrote that “the criminal court hearing transcripts show [Diggs] had acknowledged the underlying facts as charged during the plea hearing.”

According to a transcript from the hearing on July 1, 2024, the judge in the case told Diggs the charge she was pleading guilty meant “that you in an unreasonable manner knowingly used any personal identification information of another person … to obtain goods.”

At the hearing, Diggs said she understood the charge and entered a guilty plea, the transcript shows.

Through her lawyer, Diggs declined to comment Thursday. Parker and Richards also declined to comment.

The CHA’s Board Chair and Interim Operating Chairman Matthew Brewer and a spokesperson for the housing authority did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Diggs started Lavi Decor in 2020. Records show she and Parker’s son also have worked for another CHA contractor. That firm,. Parks and Bell Cleaning Co., is owned by Parker’s longtime boyfriend, Charles Bell.

Records show Parker was corporate secretary and a paid consultant for Parks and Bell but resigned from that firm after she was appointed to the CHA board in June 2018 by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. At the time, Parker was touted as the first CHA housing voucher tenant on the agency’s board. She also had lived in the city’s Altgeld Gardens public housing development.

Bell told WBEZ last year that his company — which has been paid more than $5.8 million by the CHA — was contacted by the inspector general. Bell denied getting favorable treatment due to his personal relationship with Parker.

The inspector general alleged last year that the commissioner’s sister, Angela Parker, tried to overbill the agency repeatedly, for a total of more than $175,000. After being confronted about “exorbitant proposals,” Angela Parker allegedly turned hostile toward CHA staff, threatening to complain to the agency’s CEO and board, the inspector general said in October.

Richards told CHA administrators they could terminate their contract with Angela Parker’s company, Ryan’s Cleaning Services Inc., which has been paid a total of more than $15 million by the agency, records show.

The CHA decided to give Angela Parker only a “warning letter,” according to the inspector general’s office.

In her response to CHA officials in October, Angela Parker wrote that her company “absolutely DOES NOT engage in business practices that promote irresponsible and/or dishonest business activities as mentioned in the [inspector general’s] report.”

She added, “However, we do accept the CHA admonishment and ensure that we exercise supreme caution and thoroughness when we supply estimates and quotes to CHA.”

At a CHA board meeting last month, Angela Parker told the Sun-Times she was continuing to perform work for the agency.

Dan Mihalopoulos is an investigative reporter for WBEZ. Lizzie Kane is a contributor for the Chicago Sun-Times.