Dear Editor:
After being elected as 4th Ward Councilman I have spent a significant amount of time listening and fighting to improve quality of life concerns at the HHA. One course of action I took to investigate their concerns was to file a Congressional Complaint with the assistance of Congressman Bob Menendez. This action called for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to conduct a limited review of the Hoboken Housing Authority.
At the conclusion of their review they found three extremely significant and valid complaints. One complaint that was validated was that the HHA needs to improve the amount of time it takes to renovate vacant units. At the time this review took place there were over 50 vacant units. The second complaint that was validated was the extremely poor work done by the contractors renovating the bathrooms. They identified that the extremely poor work may have exasperated a pre-existing rodent problem. The third complaint that was validated was the overall poor physical condition of the HHA buildings.
Results indicated that 82.26 percent of the HHA units failed to meet the Housing Quality Standards. As a result of these findings, the HHA has to issue a corrective action plan with the dates in which these problems will be restored. If these conditions continue to exist, the HHA places itself in danger of being taken over by a state agency.
A recent occurrence that has raised more concern was the failure of the HHA to apply for an additional 100 Section 8 vouchers. This is not only of concern to HHA residents but of all the residents of Hoboken whom are seeking affordable housing. Items such as this should not be overlooked.
I, along with my allies Council members Dave Roberts and Tony Soares, are committed to improving the quality of life throughout the city of Hoboken. In a recent letter HHA residents may have received from Anthony Russo, he claims that we want to divide the community. His claims cannot be further from the truth; our goal is to unite the community to fight for the quality of life improvements that are sorely needed in the HHA. Anthony Russo has been Mayor of this city for seven and one-half years, and during the course of that time he has ignored and neglected your concerns allowing conditions to worsen to what we have today. His primary concern has been to award HHA contracts to those generous enough to donate hefty amounts of cash to his campaign. Only now does he recognize the plight of the HHA residents. As for working with the HHA commissioners, we know we are not working with the commissioners themselves but with the puppet master Anthony Russo.
Ruben Ramos Jr.
4th Ward Councilman