The Public Housing Project – Predators, Power, and the Broken System

In this harrowing long-form episode of Unsealed, Joel Chandler takes listeners inside one of the darkest investigations of his career: Florida’s public housing authorities. What began in 2017 with a single phone call about a slap inside the Lakeland Housing Authority spiraled into a years-long battle uncovering systemic abuse, sexual harassment, exploitation, and secrecy.

From whistleblowers and victims to commissioners, police detectives, and even predators themselves, Joel follows the threads through a maze of intimidation, cover-ups, and impunity. The investigation reveals not just individual misconduct, but a system designed to protect itself—where commissioners are stripped of power, phantom corporations hide in plain sight, and women are silenced through fear, eviction, and retaliation.

Drawing on firsthand encounters, depositions, internal files, and stories from across Florida, this episode exposes the “predator’s playbook” used against some of the state’s most vulnerable women. It’s a story of corruption, cowardice, and cruelty—but also of those who dared to fight back.