I’ve been told there has been a 40% increase in low income housing (project) in NYC taken off the market because of not enough money to make them livable. Basically the federal structure of low income housing is more aligned into creating elite political favorism -I’d say there is massive national corruption in low income housing and we should take over local management by the federal government.
How about a blue ribbon NASA and 9/11 style investigation on the local management of low income housing –with the ability to demand evidence and swearing in of indiveguals.
HUD rips Newark authority
Money to house poor spent on arena project
Sunday, April 24, 2005
BY JEFFERY C. MAYS
Star-Ledger Staff
The government agency that oversees how federal housing dollars are spent blasted the Newark Housing Authority for "questionable expenditures" of $6.5 million that should have gone to house the poor.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said yesterday that $3.9 million of that money went to purchase 12 building lots in the downtown arena redevelopment zone.
HUD ordered the NHA to return that amount to the accounts used to provide housing for some of the city's needy residents.
"The (Newark) housing authority has 30 days to appeal and explain ... why the money was used to purchase the property as opposed to being used for low- and moderate-income people," HUD spokesman Jerry Brown said.
HUD also ordered a full, independent audit of NHA's 2004 and 2005 financial statements.
"After a comprehensive look at NHA, HUD has determined there is a lot of room for improvement in the financial and management operations of the agency," HUD assistant secretary Michael Liu said in a prepared release.
The HUD review also significantly lowered a series of performance ratings for the NHA, bringing it into the category of a "troubled" housing agency in serious risk of being taken over by the federal government.
Of the 3,500 housing authorities HUD oversees, only 285 are listed as troubled.
In these performance ratings, a score of 100 is highest and 60 is deemed acceptable. Newark was rated poorly in every category, ranking as low as zero in financial, a 3 in management and an 8 in customer satisfaction. The NHA scored a 33 in the Public Housing Assessment and a 31 in Section 8 management.
Harold Lucas, the NHA's executive director, said he had not seen the report when reached at his East Orange home last night.
But he said the NHA did not use Section 8 money to purchase lots in the zone where a $310 million arena will be built for the New Jersey Devils.
"That's not true," Lucas said. "Those lots were bought a long time ago."
Harry Robinson, a spokesman for the NHA, said the agency will appeal HUD's findings.
The financial management of NHA was called into question as recently as last September, when the agency spent more than $1 million dollars to redo its headquarters, including the purchase of a plasma television for Lucas.
Lucas also spent money to buy luxury vehicles and paid his daughter $25,000 to run the authority's beauty pageant. Lucas has three relatives who are employed by the authority, including his wife and son.
At the same time, more than 80 people, including maintenance workers, were being laid off.
The agency also invested $1.4 million in a troubled movie theater.
Lucas, who once was the city's business administrator, also worked as assistant secretary for public and Indian housing for HUD under the Clinton administration. This is his second stint with NHA. He makes an annual salary of $202,500, according to public records, more than the mayor of the city.
The housing authority manages more than 13,000 units for 30,000 residents.
In October of last year, the city council voted to allow the NHA to be used as the redevelopment agent for the arena project, and the NHA floated the city bonds to help finance the project.
In yesterday's review, HUD said it found a "laundry list" of other serious financial and management problems at NHA that need to be addressed immediately, said Brown.
They include:
· Missing six deadlines to build low-income housing at the Archbishop Walsh site under the Hope VI funding program.
· Failing to determine the reasonable rent for available units and failing to examine family income.
· Failing to perform housing inspections and making sure that units are up to federal standards before families move in.
· Concentrating voucher housing choices in areas of high poverty with mostly minority residents creating and worsening "pockets of poverty," said Brown.
Brown also said HUD was unable to find much of the paperwork required to document the authority's spending.
"They say they spent money on an aid program or put money in a certain account, and we can't find that money," said Brown. "We believe the money has been wrongfully used."
Newark Mayor Sharpe James said yesterday the housing authority has gone from "worst to first" under the direction of Lucas. He noted that several high-rise housing complexes have been destroyed in favor of low-rise, low-density townhouse complexes.
"There is no agency on Earth that has received federal dollars that has not received an unfavorable audit and had to do corrective measures or reimbursement. This is routine for government," said James.
"Under no circumstance would I condemn an agency that has improved the quality of life for 30,000 residents."
But Brown said, "the city touts the housing authority as going from worst to the best. I think someone has skewed the recent reporting numbers."
Brown said the last few agencies to score so poorly, including the Virgin Islands and Sarasota, Fla., ended up under federal receivership. But, he said, a takeover is the last resort, and HUD will try to work with the agency first to correct problems.
Staff writer Joan Whitlow contributed to this report. Jeffery C. Mays covers Newark City Hall. He can be reached at jmays@starledger.com or (973) 392-4149.
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