A vendor named in the Glennville Housing Authority audit, who was also fired from her position as the Executive Director with the McRae Housing Authority, issued a lengthy public statement Thursday morning announcing she has filed a complaint with the Georgia State Board of Accountancy.
Yashiaca Brown was named in the GHA 2026 audit as an independent contractor with questionable payments and insufficient invoices, though her contract work follows her tenure with at least three other housing authorities. Brown worked with now-former Executive Director Leslie Clinton Ellis at the Hazlehurst Housing Authority before Brown went to work for McRae’s Housing Authority and Ellis for Glennville’s. When Brown was terminated in McRae and an FBI investigation was initiated, she began doing contract work for Ellis in Glennville. She contracted for a little more than a year before the GHA audit was released.
BROWN’S STATEMENT
Brown called Glennville’s audit “reckless” and “factually false,” claiming the audit “severely defamed” her 25-year career in housing inspection management and “caused the immediate loss of public and private contracts.”
In her statement published on social media, Brown said the auditor accused Brown of misrepresentation and potential fraud, falsely claiming her business was a non-existent legal entity that was not registered with the state.
From the press release:
“Chang & Company weaponized an official audit report to destroy a pristine 25-year professional reputation because they refused to do a simple Google search of click a link on the Secretary of State’s website,” said Yashiaca K. Brown. “They decoupled financial invoices from physical reality and historical federal results. An administrative procurement omission regarding a specific name variant on an insurance policy was recklessness escalated into an allegation of criminal fraud. This is a gross professional negligence.”
Public records and what’s on file with the Glennville Housing Authority, however, tell a different story.
FACT CHECK
Auditors who conduct financial reviews for local housing authorities are bound by federal compliance guidelines that meet HUD standards. They use documents provided directly from the housing authority to make determinations and draft annual audit findings. Most notably, auditors cannot publish findings that are not substantiated by the records on which the findings are based. HUD can (and does) reject audits that do not meet standards, however, in the case of both the McRae Housing Authority and the Glennville Housing Authority, HUD accepted the audits and agreed with the findings.
WHAT THE AUDIT SAID: “Yashiaca Brown was paid $20,160 as a contract consultant. The contract was issued in the name of Yashiaca Brown LLC, however, that LLC was not currently registered with the State of Georgia and therefore she misrepresented herself as an LLC that does not exist.”
WHAT BROWN SAYS: Yashiaca Keyawnnie Brown LLC was registered with the Georgia Secretary of State on March 31, 2025.
WHAT THE SECRETARY OF STATE WEBSITE SAYS: The GA SOS shows a Yashiaca Keyawnnie Brown LLC with a registration date of March 31, 2025. In June 2026, the GA SOS notified Brown that the business would be administratively dissolved for failure to pay the annual fee and 90 days later, on September 18, 2026, the LLC was dissolved. Brown reinstated the audit on October 16, 2026, three days after the audit was received by the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners in Glennville.
WHAT THE PUBLIC RECORDS SAY:
- Brown was working as the Executive Director of the McRae Housing Authority at the time of the LLC registration. Meeting minutes from the McRae Housing Authority show that on March 13, 2025 – seventeen days before the LLC was registered – HUD officials “informed staff and the attending Board members that the purpose of the meeting [was] to inform everyone that the recommendation had been sent to HUD Headquarters in D.C. for the dismissal of the executive director and staff, the dismemberment of the Board, and to the consolidation with a neighboring agency.”
- The Glennville Housing Authority Board of Commissioners never voted to approve a contract for services with Yashiaca Brown, Yashiaca Brown LLC, or Yashiaca Keyawnnnie Brown LLC as required by law.
- The LLC name on GHA contracts is ‘Yashiaca Brown LLC,’ not ‘Yashiaca Keyawnnie Brown LLC. Names that are not an identical match to the legal business name of Brown do not meet legal requirements as the State of Georgia and most banks require an exact match.
- Despite the existence of a LLC that is similar to the LLC named on the contracts, checks from the Glennville Housing Authority were made out directly to Yashiaca Brown, her personal name, not any LLC.
WHAT THE AUDIT SAID: “The descriptions on the invoices were insufficient to determine what work was actually performed…Payments appear excessive and potentially fraudulent.”
WHAT BROWN SAYS: She was paid a $20,160 fee for 30 days of work as part of an “operational asset overhaul.” She was bound by a contract and that her “team deployed 24/7, working extended hours, weekends and throughout the Thanksgiving holiday to protect the Housing Authority from severe federal penalties.” Brown did not address the insufficient descriptions.
WHAT PUBLIC RECORDS SAY: According to records in possession of the Glennville Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, contracts with Brown do not include pre-set and approved amounts for a scope of work. Additionally, each check was accompanied by a copy-paste version of the same contract with the same scope of work and a different invoice amount.
WHAT THE AUDIT SAID: “No liability insurance was in effect during the fiscal year.”
WHAT BROWN SAYS: Brown did not address the lacking liability insurance in her public statement.
WHAT A HOUSING AUTHORITY BOARD OF COMMISSIONER SAYS: Brown operated under the assumption that she did not have to obtain liability insurance because she was not doing “hands on” work on the properties, however, at least some of her contract justifications cite plumbing work and tub refinishing. Brown reportedly relied on the position that she was not doing the work herself and instead sent a team in to complete the work, but the liability insurance requirement is for the LLC – to cover anyone working for the LLC – and not Brown herself.
WHAT BROWN SAYS: The audit defamed her “pristine 25-year professional reputation.”
WHAT PUBLIC RECORDS SAY: The McRae Housing Authority audit for 2025 counters this position. The report identified 13 material weaknesses, including allegations of theft of federal funds, unauthorized payments to employees, questionable vendor invoices, missing property, and inadequate oversight by the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners. Among the most serious findings in that audit was Yashiaca Brown’s supposed circumvention of internal financial controls to issue $164,853 in unauthorized payments to herself and another employee, Keyonna Eason.
Brown said she had also served “formal rebuttals and demands for complete retraction, correction, and financial damages for defamation per se” on the Glennville Housing Authority, Chang & Company, the HUD Atlanta Field Office, and federal authorities.
Previous Coverage:
- Audit: Glennville Housing Authority Paid for Work at Employees’ Homes, $441K in Questionable Contractor Payments
- Glennville Housing Authority Saga Spans to McRae Housing Authority Where FBI is Already Investigating
- Glennville City Officials Replace 4 Glennville Housing Authority Board Members Amid Fraud Investigation
- Two Glennville Housing Authority Employees Terminated
- Two Glennville Housing Authority Employees Arrested
- GBI Arrests Vendor Amid Glennville Housing Authority Investigation
