When Mayor Sharon Owens reached out to former Common Council President Bethaida “Bea” González asking her to serve as a board commissioner at the Syracuse Housing Authority, González did not agree right away. She reached out to the board chair at the state’s Homes and Community Renewal and HCR’s legal team to make sure being on the board of the local housing authority would not be an issue.
“I had to check. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t creating a problem for myself because of my other roles,” González told Central Current.
Mayor Owens announced González’s appointment to the SHA board on Thursday, following former Board Chair Ryan Benz’s resignation. González is the third Owens appointee in the last year. Her previous appointees include Douglas Reicher and Stephanie Pasquale. Pasquale stepped down to serve as Owens’ chief strategy advisor. SHA commissioners unanimously elected Rickey Brown, appointed to the board in November by former Mayor Ben Walsh, as the chair and Reicher as vice chair at SHA’s September board meeting.
A Puerto Rico native, González, who is also the oldest of six children, moved to Syracuse at age 3 with her family. They resided at an Adams Street apartment.
González has a deep connection to the Southside. Her family moved between Syracuse and Puerto Rico before settling in Syracuse. González found herself residing in nearly every part of town, especially in the city’s Southside, including Shonnard Avenue and Brighton Avenue. In middle school, she lived in the James Geddes Housing Development on Fabius Street. One of her four sisters currently lives in an SHA scattered site on Pastime Drive.
“Syracuse Housing Authority’s mission represents everything I believe in for my community. So if I get a chance to help SHA achieve their mission, I [will] feel like I’ve done my job” González said.
González is looking forward to learning how the authority functions. She hopes to help address the issues confronting residents, including quality of life issues like apartment maintenance, González said.
When asked by a Central Current reporter if the recent turmoil and turnover at SHA worried her, González emphasized the strength of the professional relationships she has cultivated. She believes her ability to build those relationships could help SHA in their billion-dollar redevelopment of public housing on the city’s Southside.
“I kind of knew what I was getting into simply from the state level, and I know a lot of players in the room from different aspects of my life,” she said. “So I’m hoping that that social capital will help me be effective.”
A seasoned community leader and public servant who has worked in the Central New York region for over four decades, González recently wrapped up her duties as board chair at the Central New York Community Foundation.
“The timing was perfect,” González said. “I didn’t have a local board to serve on, which I’d like to have at least one. And so this is an opportunity.”
González served in her first SHA board meeting on Tuesday.
The housing authority has seen high turnover in the recent months. González’s appointment comes in the heels of Benz’s resignation from the board last week two months after former Executive Director Bill Simmons announced his surprise early retirement.
Benz’s resignation came while the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development investigated a complaint Simmons filed earlier this year against Benz. Simmons accused the developer of having an undisclosed conflict of interest related to the redevelopment of public housing on the Southside. SHA counsel Brad Hunt dismissed Simmons’ claims earlier this year and Benz denied having any conflict of interest. HUD ultimately ruled that Benz had an “apparent conflict of interest.”
Benz was appointed as commissioner by former Mayor Ben Walsh in March 2025. He was elected by the SHA board to serve as chair in November 2025.
Simmons announced his surprise early retirement following a yearlong conflict with Owens, former Mayor Ben Walsh and nonprofit officials who accused the former leader of a lack of transparency and missed deadlines. Simmons denied those accusations.
However, the accusations still mired his final years at SHA. Owens, a vocal Simmons critic, long called for a change in leadership and appointed several allies to the board of commissioners.
González is a graduate of Binghamton University and holds a Master of Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Her career began as an academic advisor in higher education. She for nearly four decades built a career at Syracuse University in various roles, including associate dean, interim dean, and the dean of the College of Professional Studies. She also served as the vice president for community engagement at SU.
González was the first Latina to be elected to the Syracuse Board of Education and the first Latina president of the Syracuse Common Council. She served on the council for nine years. She has been appointed to serve on the New York State Mortgage Agency Board and is a trustee to the New York Power Authority and Canals Corporation.
“Mostly I’m just driven by my commitment to improving my community and to bringing resources to my community, which is why I’m on the state boards, primarily to make sure that Central New York isn’t forgotten [in] all of the opportunities that get generated by these state authorities,” she said.
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