Each weekday, the Jubilee Community Center near Hoboken’s housing projects thrives with activity. Children tap away at computer keyboards, and volunteers serve dinners to 50 underprivileged kids nightly.
The center was the culmination of dreams and hard work by the All Saints Community Service and Development Corporation, a faith-based group based out of a church across town in the more upscale waterfront area. For the past six years, the corporation, under the umbrella of All Saints Episcopal Parish at Seventh and Washington streets, used its entire savings to purchase the land for the Jubilee Center and to leverage a loan to build it. But where All Saints’ community center has blossomed, another never got off the ground.
Just two blocks south of the Jubilee Center, which is located at Sixth and Jackson streets, a half-empty parking lot sits underutilized at the corner of Fourth and Jackson. Along the fence line are two wooden posts, which for the better part of the last six years held a sign announcing the Hoboken Housing Authority’s future plans to construct a $3.4 million community center there.
The Hoboken Housing Authority, which is funded by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, was supposed to include a day care center, job training programs, and indoor basketball court in the new building.
The sign was removed about six months ago, and the naked posts are the only reminder of what could have been. It’s not as if Hoboken couldn’t use a second community center. The 2000 Census stated that 22.1 percent of all Hoboken households have a family income of less than $25,000 per year.
So why was All Saints able to succeed where the publicly-funded Hoboken Housing Authority has not? Politics vs. reality
In the world of politics, there is often a wide gap between what is promised before an election and what is delivered afterward.
Turn the clock back to 1999. In May of that year, six out of nine City Council seats were up for grabs. No less than two weeks before the election, Hoboken Housing Authority (HHA) officials proudly announced that they would use $3.4 million to build a training and recreation center in the projects.
The HHA oversees approximately 1,383 federally subsidized units of low-income housing in the southwest part of Hoboken. The HHA answers to HUD and is not city-run, but the City Council, mayor, and state appoint seven unpaid commissioners to the housing board. That board, in turn, hires a paid executive director, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the projects.
One of the seats in play for that pivotal City Council election was the city’s 4th Ward, the area where most of the low-income projects are located. Whoever wins in the projects usually wins the 4th Ward.
That year, the two major 4th Ward candidates were Florence Amato, the wife of former Councilman Andrew Amato, who was supported by then-Mayor Anthony Russo, and young schoolteacher Ruben Ramos Jr., who ended up winning.
The HHA press conference, held two weeks before the council election, took place not in the projects but in Mayor Russo’s office in City Hall. It clearly could have been a boost to Russo’s candidate. But afterward, both 4th Ward campaigns claimed that the idea was their own, and used renderings of the proposed center in their literature.
Russo was so angry at Ramos for taking credit for the Housing Authority ideas that he went to an HHA tenants’ meeting and denounced Ramos. He said that the “credit” for the idea should go to the HHA director and the HHA’s Board of Commissioners.
But there was a problem with Russo’s reasoning. His council candidates used the same rendering in their own literature.
It certainly wasn’t the first time that politicians took credit for an idea before an election. It’s also probably not the first time that they weren’t able to follow through afterwards.
Jubilation
But while politicians argued over who should receive praise during the election season, officials from All Saints were busy rolling up their sleeves to make their dream a reality.
Their idea evolved out of a five-year partnership between the All Saints Community Service and Development Corporation (ASCSDC) and a group of mothers who live in the Hoboken Housing Authority projects. In 1996, the ASCSDC had assisted lifelong public housing resident and mother of three Melvona Hicks in starting up the “Homework Club” tutoring program in one of the Housing Authority’s community rooms.
The Club has been running every year since.
However, at the time, the community rooms were cramped and were not open late. All Saints, particularly outreach director Laurie Wurm, began working on a plan for a community center.
At the time, in the late 1990s, politicians generally talked about the Housing Authority projects only during election time. HHA commissioners’ meetings drew only five or six onlookers.
“The All Saints Community Service and Development Corporation was incorporated [to try to] bring together the white-color and blue-collar segments of the city in a collaboration on behalf of the children,” said Wurm, the director of the ASCSDC.
The ASCSDC obtained a construction loan and permanent mortgage from the Thrift Institution Community Investment Corporation in Cranford, which is funded by a consortium of Hudson County banks. Rev. John P. Croneberger, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, said at the 2001 groundbreaking ceremony for the center, “It is imperative that our worship and prayer are not confined to the church building itself.”
April of 2003 saw the opening of the three-story, 9,000 square-foot building, located across the street from the projects. In addition to the Homework Club, the new center offered tutoring, computer literacy, entrepreneurial training, cooperative learning and problem solving activities, drug-prevention education, health and nutrition workshops, and opportunities for creative expression through dance, visual arts, creative writing, music, and theater for young children and teens.
An average of 50 children between the ages of 5 and 16 make use of the center each weekday afternoon. “What we had hoped most is that the center would become a crossroads where people in the larger community could use their resources to better the community as a whole,” said Wurm last week.
Local officials have become involved as well. Mayor David Roberts and state Sen. Bernard Kenny have brought in grants. Last week, the Hoboken Fire Department and Hoboken Police Department donated toys collected through a Toys-for-Tots drive. Also, Hoboken’s biggest corporate neighbor, John Wiley & Sons publishing, recently ran a toy drive to benefit the center.
So close, but yet so far
But while plans for the Jubilee center started taking shape, the management at the Hoboken Housing Authority began to fall apart.
In 1998, the department of Housing and Urban Development informed the Housing Authority that a previous administration had failed to spend approximately $2.5 million a year in capital improvement grants from 1993 to 1995. At the time, HUD said that they would take back the money if it were not spent soon.
In 1999, the HHA Board of Commissioners and their recently hired executive director, E. Troy Washington, announced that the nearly $8 million would be spent on a host of projects including bathroom renovations, new roofs, a new mail room, windows, and the $3.4 million community center.
“We were meeting weekly,” said former HHA Chairman Anthony Pasquale last week. “This was something that we were confident that, if we worked hard, we could make happen.” Pasquale served until the year 2000. Indeed, some of the money was spent on improvements to the projects. In the first phases of construction, copper roofs, some new windows, and a mailroom were completed, although there were many complaints that the work was shoddy.
But when it came time to start the second phase, which included the community center, the HHA governing body and management began to unravel, including acrimonious in-fighting.
Situation deteriorates
In October of 2000, a team of federal investigators released a report on the HHA that found several areas of poor management. One finding of the report was that the HHA had a slow turnover rate and excessive vacancies. When Mayor David Roberts took office in 2001, he appointed his commissioners to the boards, one of whom was new Councilman Ramos. A bitter feud between two factions on the Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners boiled over. One faction was supported by City Hall. The other sided with HHA Executive Director Troy Washington, who had become a controversial figure.
Washington had come in to his position in 1999 with little experience running a housing authority except for less than a year as the HHA’s comptroller. But he also did not have any political ties to Hoboken, something that was seen by some as a positive trait.
The young upstart from Newark began to inspire complaints that he was unreachable and autocratic. He later started taking law school classes while serving in his position.
But were the complaints valid, or were they designed to get Washington out and replace him with an old-time Hoboken political crony? Some on the outside found it tough to tell. The debate inspired a bitter feud. Roberts and Ramos, along with Councilman Christopher Campos – a young lawyer who had grown up in the projects – constantly dogged Washington with charges of inappropriate management practices. The City Council in January 2002 even hired a lawyer for $30,000 to investigate management practices at the Hoboken Housing Authority. The investigation was never completed. Ramos said last week that the firm that was hired shirked its duties and never completed the work, and the council withheld payment to them.
Relations on the board deteriorated to such a point that the commissioners went six months without holding a single meeting, which made it hard to proceed with large-scale projects such as a community center. When Washington spoke to the press, which was rare, he blasted Roberts’ administration for politicizing what was supposed to be an autonomous housing authority.
In 2002 and 2003, there were multiple attempts by the City Hall-supported faction of the HHA Board of Commissioners to oust Washington, but they were unsuccessful. All the while, plans for the community center got lost in the shuffle.
Washington leaves, problems uncovered
The saga continued when in January of 2003, Washington left his position in Hoboken to go work as the executive director of the Jersey City Housing Authority.
While Washington was settling into his new post, problems left in Hoboken began to come to light. Hoboken “borrowed” well-respected West New York Housing Authority Director Robert DiVincent to oversee Hoboken’s projects.
DiVincent soon issued a dour report to the Newark Branch of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development alleging that the HHA was operating with a $3.6 million deficit and had overspent its budget by millions of dollars.
The report said that in addition to wildly overspending on security and computer systems, the HHA’s capital funds, which are often called “brick and mortar” funds because they are allotted for physical improvements and construction, had been transferred to offset overexpenditures for “soft” or operational expenses such as salaries. In 2003, $665,412 that was supposed to go to construction instead went to salaries. There is currently an open investigation of the Inspector General of HUD as to the legality of transferring capital money to salaries without the approval of HUD or the HHA’s Board of Commissioners.
After this and other information came to light, Washington was terminated from his position in Jersey City. Washington has denied he left Hoboken with a deficit, and has filed a pending lawsuit to get his job back in Jersey City.
Washington did not return a cell phone call last week.
But there is evidence supporting DiVincent’s findings of financial problems. The supporting evidence came from the Public Housing Assessment System of HUD, which earlier this year designated the HHA a substandard financial authority. Out of 100 points, Hoboken scored a 62, with 60 being the cut-off for a troubled agency. While 62 is passing, the less-than-stellar score means the HHA is subject to additional HUD oversight and will have to complete a corrective action plan.
The Public Housing Assessment System is designed by HUD as a comprehensive oversight tool that measures all housing authorities based on uniform standards. The assessment is divided into several categories which include data on physical conditions, financial conditions, and management operations.
On the financial section, Hoboken scored a mere 5 out of 30.
On the road to recovery?
So how does the situation stand today? Ironically, it’s similar to where the HHA was in 1999, as it was just coming off the HUD troubled agency list. At the time, they had a new executive director (Troy Washington), and $8 million in funds to fix up the grounds and buildings.
And several weeks ago, the HHA found out it would be receiving receive $10.3 million that will be used for capital improvements via a bond leveraging program. In this program, 15 authorities from around the state have gone out to bond and then split the loan. According to DiVincent, the HHA will now perform a physical and mechanical needs assessment, and the Board of Commissioners will prioritize how the money should be spent. DiVincent said that some items to be fixed or improved include the bathrooms, roofs, cabinets, windows, doors, and other infrastructure.
So just like in 1999, the HHA is emerging from period of strife, has a new executive director, and has million of dollars earmarked for capital improvements.
Councilman and HHA Commissioner Campos said Thursday that he believes that things will be different this time. “We have seen our share of struggle, but the outlook is a positive one,” said Campos. “And this money will be used for the benefit of the residents of the Housing Authority.”
Campos said Thursday that a new community center is at the top of their wish list, but that for now, the priority is improving the conditions of the buildings. He did say that several small recreation projects, such the rehabilitation of the basketball courts, could be included in the first phase of work.
“For the first time in a long time,” Campos said, “We a mayor, executive director, and board of commissioners working in concert and not against each other.”
Ramos said, “They would not give us the $10.4 million if they didn’t think we could handle it this time around.” Meanwhile… As the Hoboken Housing Authority continues to dig itself out of debt, the good work at the Jubilee Center moves forward. On Friday, the Jubilee Center was scheduled to hold its first Winter Wonderland Christmas Musical before the congregation at the All Saints Church. More than 50 of the Homework Club members were to sing holiday classics and participate in different performances ranging from tap dancing to ballet to hip-hop, all of which they learned at Jubilee Center.
“The past year has been a wonderful experience,” said Wurm. “[It’s] really a dream come true.”