After six months of on-site investigations, a team of federal investigators released a report on the Hoboken Housing Authority recently which has left detractors of the current management team saying “I told you so!” while proponents argued that the findings are actually quite positive.
Neither side has said that conditions at the 1,353 unit federally subsidized low-income housing complexes in the southwest corner of town are what they should be. In the last three years, the HHA’s paid
administrators and unpaid volunteer board have had the difficult task of overcoming problems including fiscal mismanagement, the arrest of a commissioner in 1997 and a designation of “troubled status” by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The question of how quickly are things turning around has been on the table since E. Troy Washington took over as Executive Director almost two years ago and an entirely new board of commissioners was gradually appointed.
Fourth Ward Councilman Ruben Ramos Jr. has argued that change has come “marginally” at best with Washington and that the current HHA administration may be engaged in inappropriate management practices. Washington and his supporters have argued that Ramos is politicizing the HHA and that change is going to take time given the agency’s beleaguered past. Up until the council elections in 1999, the HHA had been virtually ignored by all of the town’s politicos.
Into this highly charged atmosphere waded a team of federal investigators from the Department of Housing and Urban Development at the end of last year. From December 7, 1999 to June 2, 2000, they interviewed dozens of staff people and residents, and culled through mountains of records, as part of an investigation into the agency’s management practices. The investigation, which was conducted from an HHA office, was launched after Ramos took a list of 10 complaints to Congressman Bob Menendez (D-13th Dist.) and asked him to make an official inquiry.
Ramos made the complaints, which included charges that apartments turned over too slowly and that residents’ leases were used for political purposes, after repeatedly fielding complaints from tenants. The councilman, whose father Ruben Ramos Sr. works as housing manager at the HHA, represents the ward where the projects are located.
In a letter written to HUD’s regional director, Carmen Valenti, Alexander Malloy, the district’s Inspector General, concluded that three out of the 10 complaints Ramos compiled did have merit. In particular, the IG stated that the HHA has a slow turnover rate, as Ramos and some tenants have said. Malloy also stated that complaints about the unsatisfactory renovation of bathrooms and the poor physical condition of the projects’ buildings had merit. The bathroom renovations had actually been cited in the past by Washington as a positive change the agency was making.
But not everything the IG wrote was negative. Malloy did not validate seven of the 10 complaints, including charges that the Executive Director, E. Troy Washington, and his site managers were underqualified. Investigators also found no evidence to support charges that leases were used for voter turnout. Frequent references to the poor state of affairs that Washington and the current slate of commissioners inherited peppered most the report, causing some proponents of the executive director to say that it was actually “positive” since it showed that the agency “was on the right track.”
“This actually vindicates the Housing Authority,” said recently installed Board Chairman Michael Stefano last week. “Of the 10 complaints, seven were invalid. And of the three valid comments, we have made changes before this was even brought up.”
Although the IG’s report suggests that more work still needs to be done, there is some evidence in it that the situation is improving.
‘Represents an improvement’
When evaluating the complaint about a slow turnover rate and excessive vacancies, the IG notes that, “HUD’s goal in turning around vacant units is 30 days; however, the HHA is turning vacant units around in 85 days. Although this is not within HUD standards, it represents an improvement for the HHA. Under the prior HHA administration, it took 175 days to turn around a unit.”
The IG also notes that the number of vacancies, 58 at the time of the report, was within acceptable HUD standards. However, the report states that 10 units were found to be vacant even though “they were not listed on the executive director’s vacancy list.”
The IG discovered that a $1.6 million renovation of the bathrooms in more than 60 percent of the project’s units had been bungled by a contractor.
“Our review disclosed that HHA has numerous documents, i.e. correspondence and photographs, which revealed that the contractor performed poorly,” the report said. “The contractor was to ensure that any bathroom that had been dismantled during the day was fully restored at the end of the day. However, the contractor left 18 units unfinished at the end of a Friday, without functioning sinks etc. We believe that this may have contributed to the pre-existing rodent and insect problem in some units.”
The IG also noted that HHA managers had taken action to try to address the problem by ordering the contractor to correct the deficiencies. “The HHA also delayed payment on two occasions until the contractor adhered to contract stipulations,” the IG wrote.
“The renovation problems are being addressed,” the report concludes.
With respect to the poor physical condition of the units, the IG found that 82 percent of the more than 1,300 units the agency administers failed inspection standards outlined by HUD. “Until the unsightly conditions of the grounds, building and common areas are repaired and until units are upgraded to meet HUD’s minimum [standards], we question whether the HHA is providing suitable housing to all of its tenants,” the IG wrote.
HHA managers were clearly upset by this complaint. “[It’s] vague, wide ranging and ambiguous,” they told the IG, according to comments attached to the report. Housing managers told the IG that when Washington and the new board took over they “were faced with an appalling legacy of benign neglect that had occurred under the prior 14-plus year period…The HHA is now aggressively trying to upgrade the physical condition of buildings [however] this is not something that can be accomplished overnight.” They also complained that some units were given a failing grade for “trivial problems such as a cracked light switch.”
HHA housing managers were told that they had until the end of November to take action on the complaints that were considered valid or provide sufficient evidence that no action was needed.
The waiting
Release of the report may help muffle some of the more persistent rumors that are heard from some HHA tenants. For example complaint number 6 alleged that HHA waiting lists were being maintained improperly. But the IG found that there was virtually no waiting list for elderly apartments or for one or two bedroom apartments and that the lists of three and four bedroom apartments were being handled properly.
Other complaints were deemed factually true, such as a complaint that apartments were turned into offices and the complaint that charged that HHA employees were no longer considered civil servants. But the IG said that no action was necessary since they did not violate HUD rules or regulations.
Ramos and the commissioners seem to see evidence that supports their own view of what is really going on at the HHA.
“In the last few years things may have gotten marginally better,” said Ramos. “But if they had gotten a lot better, the residents would not be calling my house every day. I wish they would get their act together on this stuff. I’ve been asking them to do something about this since I got elected [in April, 1999]. The elevators are always broken. The maintenance is shoddy. This just verifies my feelings about the problems.” Not surprisingly, Nellie Moyeno, a recently-appointed commissioner who also serves as council president, sees it differently.
“This was positive,” she said Wednesday. “From where we used to be to where we are now is great. There are other things that need to be done, but things are coming around. They used to be really bad and they are getting better.”
Troy Washington did not return a phone call seeking comment.