Syracuse Housing Authority Board Chair Calvin Corriders Sr. (far left) resigned on Thursday. Corriders has served on the board for four years and as chair for two years. Credit: Debadrita Sur | Central Current

Syracuse Housing Authority board chair Calvin Corriders Sr. announced on Thursday his resignation from the board. 

Corriders’ resignation comes after years of turmoil related to the housing authority’s redevelopment of public housing. He has served on the board for about four years and as board chair for about two years. 

This year, the turmoil around the project came to a head. Mayor Ben Walsh expressed concern about SHA Executive Director William Simmons’ leadership, though the mayor has stopped short of calling for Simmons’ ousting. Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens and Allyn Family Foundation Executive Director Meg O’Connell have said Simmons should be removed from his role. 

Corriders said he resigned because he has personal and community obligations to tend to that had been consumed by his role with the housing authority. His term was set to expire in October 2026. 

“I’ve been fully vested in this,” Corriders said, “but it’s time for me to step down and dedicate my energy to those other things that I’ve let fall by the wayside.”

Since January 2024, SHA has had to fend off several controversies, including:

  • In January 2024, SHA paused talks with SUNY Upstate Medical University to put an optometry school near public housing’s redevelopment. Corriders, then Syracuse Housing Authority’s board chair, also served on SUNY Upstate’s advisory board. 
  • In February 2025, the city, SHA, Blueprint 15 and the Allyn Family Foundation put the pursuit of the Children Rising Center on pause. O’Connell laid blame at SHA’s feet, accusing them of missing critical self-imposed deadlines that prevented the foundation from obtaining tax credits that would cover a portion of the financing for the CRC. SHA blamed Allyn and Blueprint 15 for the project’s pause for not closing on the funding it pursued. 
  • Since the redevelopment of public housing was announced in 2019, the project has experienced delays. The latest delay came in September. 

In August, Corriders spoke to Central Current after the SHA board convened to discuss “personnel matters” at a previously unscheduled meeting. 

Simmons was present for the beginning of the meeting but he left before the board launched into an executive session. 

Corriders declined to comment on whether the personnel matters were related to Simmons. 

“So your question would assume that he was the conversation discussion. That may or may not have been the case,” Corriders said when a Central Current reporter questioned if Simmons would be briefed on what was discussed in his absence.

On Thursday, Corriders reflected positively on Simmons ability to lead the redevelopment of public housing.

Simmons, who has been publicly criticized more than any other player in the project, has remained unfazed by accusations of blame.

“Nobody can make sense of why Bill Simmons needs to be fired,” Simmons told Central Current in a sitdown interview in August. “I ignore it,” he said. 

Corriders, who is from Syracuse, has served as the Regional President and Vice President at Pathfinder Bank in Syracuse. 

He has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing management from State University of New York at Brockport. 

He was a former member of the Syracuse City School District Board of Education where he served as the board’s president and vice president as well as the curriculum committee chair, the budget and finance committee chair and the facilities committee chair. 

This is story is breaking news and will be updated with more information as it becomes available.

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Debadrita Sur is a multimedia journalist and Report for America corps member who reports on the I-81 project and public housing for Central Current. In 2023, Sur graduated with a master’s degree in journalism...