by Lynda Carson ( tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com )
posted 2014-08-21 [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/08/21/18760485.php]:
Oakland - Greedy nonprofit housing developers in Oakland and the Bay Area continue to have minimum income requirements at their so-called affordable housing projects that discriminate against the poor, and create homelessness as a result.
As an example, at the Avalon Senior Housing project located at 3850 San Pablo in Oakland, the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) demands that people seeking housing at this project must have a minimum income of at least twice the rent. Presently studio apartments are going for $600.00 a month at this project, one bedroom apartments are going for as high as $712.00 per month, and two bedroom apartments are going for $845.00.
The average monthly social security check for a single retired worker is currently $1,294.00, which means that the average retired person on social security cannot afford to reside in a one bedroom or two bedroom apartment at the Avalon Senior Housing project, and can barely afford to reside in a studio apartment at this location. Many retired workers earn much less than $1,294.00 per month as social security income, and the poor people face discrimination at many so-called affordable housing projects in Oakland, and throughout the Bay Area.
Presently, the average Social Security monthly benefit in California during 2014 is $1,294 per month. The average SSI (disability) benefit payment is $877.40 per month. The average TANF (CalWorks) family in California is an adult with two children that receives $510 a month in benefits. General Assistance in California during 2014 pays $336 per month to a single person. Food Stamps (CalFresh/SNAP) for one person is $189 per month, and persons receiving SSI/SSP are not allowed in the program.
At the Erna P. Harris Court in Berkeley owned by Resources for Community Development (RCD) they are demanding that tenants earn a minimum of $5,700 per year to be able to reside in an SRO unit, and must earn at least $9,495 per year to reside in a one bedroom apartment at this so-called taxpayer affordable housing project.
Residents at the Fargo Senior Center in San Leandro, owned by Christian Church Homes of Northern California (CCH), are required to earn as much as twice the rent at this so-called affordable housing project. Studio apartments go for as much as $491-$818 per month, and one bedroom apartments cost $526-$876 per month, leaving many poor social security recipients out in the cold because they do not meet the minimum income requirements at this taxpayer subsidized housing project.
At the Fremont Oak Gardens owned by SAHA Homes, another so-called affordable housing developer, poor people face discrimination at this location if they fail to meet the minimum income requirement of $10,994 per year at this so-called affordable housing development for seniors 55, and older.
The Harrison Hotel, downtown Oakland that has 81 SRO units in the building, requires that poor people earn as much as twice the rent, and the rent at this location is $375 per month.
Helios Corner owned by SAHA Homes in Berkeley, has 80 senior and special needs units, but demands that poor people must earn $17,304 per year to reside in a studio apartment, $18,456 to live in a one bedroom unit, and a whopping $22,080 to reside in a two bedroom unit in this so-called affordable taxpayer subsidized housing project.
The project called Homes Now In The Community owned by SAHA Homes in Oakland, has ten special needs apartments for rent, but demands that the low-income tenants in the area must earn as much as 30% of the local AMI to reside there.
Merritt Crossing Senior Apartments in Oakland, which is also owned by SAHA Homes, is a 70 unit project for seniors. Poor people face discrimination at this so-called affordable housing taxpayer subsidized project if they do not earn as much as $11,328 per year to live in a studio apartment, or as much as $18,408 per year to live in a one bedroom apartment.
Northgate Terrace for seniors in Oakland, owned by Christian Church Homes of Northern California (CCH) requires that the poor elderly people seeking housing at this taxpayer subsidized housing project must earn as much as $1,450 per month, which is way more than the average person receiving social security earns each month.
The Peter Babcock House in Berkeley owned by SAHA Homes, is a special needs project with five SRO units, and demands that poor people must earn as much as $7,320 per year to reside in this taxpayer subsidized so-called affordable housing project.
At the Ellis St. Apartments in San Francisco owned by Asian Inc., another so-called affordable housing developer, is a project with thirty units of studio and one bedroom apartments, and the minimum income requirement is $1,400 per month, which discriminates against the average person receiving social security payments of $1,294 per month.
The Bayanihan House in San Francisco owned by TODCO, has 152 SRO units with shared bathrooms, and charges $545 per month in rent, but they have a minimum income requirement of $866.40 per month which leaves many out in the cold as a result.
Coleridge Park Homes for seniors in San Francisco owned by Bridge Housing, has a minimum income requirement of $17,616 per year for some, and as much as $26,808 per year for others at this taxpayer subsidized housing project.
The Knox SRO building in San Francisco owned by TODCO, has 18 SRO units, and they have a minimum income requirement of $866.40 at this taxpayer subsidized so-called affordable housing project.
The William Penn Hotel in San Francisco owned by China Town CDC, has 96 SRO units, and the minimum income requirement is 1.5 times the rent. The rent is $460-$541 per month at this taxpayer subsidized so-called affordable housing project, leaving many poor people left out in the cold.
Salaries & Wage Compensation of Executives in the Local Affordable Housing Industry
Meanwhile, many executives in the so-called nonprofit housing industry are raking in some hefty salaries and wage compensation at the same time they discriminate against the poor with their minimum income requirements.
The latest annual salaries and compensation figures from Bridge Housing for their top executives from 01/01/2012 and ending 12/31/2012: Cynthia Parker - $491,797. Rebecca Hlebasko - $303,122. Susan Johnson - $287,592. D Valentine - $286,960. Kimberly A. McKay - $282,727. Tom Early - $263,437. Brad Wilbin - $241,524. Phillip Williams - $199,571. Corinne Morrison - $193,734. Tom Casey - $188,991. James Valva - $185,685. Jeff Williams - $173,369. Mari Hikida - $172,732. Rebecca Clarke - $152,219.
EAH Inc.; In 2012, more than 11 executives at EAH Inc., earned well over $100,000 per year, including 2 people raking in well over $200,000 a year. Leading the pack, Mary Murtagh, President, was paid $298,850 in 2012. Laura Hall, Chief Operating Officer, was paid $208,286. Cathy Macy, CFO, was paid $186,709. Stephen Lucas, VP Acquisitions, was paid $182,991. Dianna Ingle, VP Re MGMT, was paid $163,324.
Affordable Housing Associates; In 2010, Susan Friedland, Executive Director of Affordable Housing Associates, was paid $133,731, but was payed $152,966 in 2012, a huge wage compensation increase of $19,235 during a period of massive budget cuts to the nation's housing programs during that same period.
Christian Church Homes: In 2011, Don Stump, President/CEO, was compensated $181,874. Cynthia Lappin, VP Operations & COO, was paid $157,295. Winthrop Marshall, VP Finance & CFO, was paid $151,687. Leilani Siegfried, VP Human Services, was paid $138,810. Geoffrey Morgan, VP Development, was paid $130,948. Sheryl Stella, Controller, was paid $123,832.
Eden Housing; In 2011, Linda Mandolini, Executive Director, was paid $188,834. Jan Peters, Chief Operating Officer, was paid $187,538. Terese Mcnamee, CFO, was paid $175,804.
Satellite Housing; In 2011, Ryan Chao, Executive Director, Satellite Housing was paid $175,321. Dori Kojima, was paid $105,179. Miriam Benavides was paid $100,093.
East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation; During 2011, Jeremy Liu, Executive Director, was paid $125,217. Peter Sopka, CFO, was paid $125,101. Mary Hennessy, COO, was paid $110,126. Carlos Castallenos, Director of Real Estate Development, was paid $103,329. Records also show that in 2009, former Executive Director of EBALDC, Lynette Jung Lee, earned as much $140,536 that year, including an additional $5,942 in other compensation. Joshua Simon is the current Executive Director, of EBALDC.
Resources for Community Development; In 2011, Dan Sawislak, Executive Director, of received a total compensation of $127,330.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Saturday, June 14, 2014
"Affordable housing industry targets public housing for termination with RAD program"
2014-06-14 by Lynda Carson ( tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com ) [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/06/14/18757407.php?show_comments=1#comments]:
A plethora of poverty pimps from the so-called nonprofit affordable housing industry are targeting our nation's 1.5 million public housing units for takeover and exploitation through the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, and they are moving quickly to grab as many public housing units as is possible.
Known as the "affordable housing mafia" by poor people who find that they cannot afford to reside in so-called affordable housing projects, most so-called nonprofit housing developers have minimum income requirements that discriminate against the poor.
After starving our nation's public housing program for many years with a lack of adequate funding, Congress has allowed 60,000 public housing units to be privatized and sold under the new RAD program recently. However, applications seeking commitments to privatize 180,000 public housing units have been offered by members of the so-called affordable housing industry from all across the nation.
The poverty pimps have done their best to lobby and oil the wheels of Congress with their campaign contributions to allow them to grab more public housing units than is currently allowed, and recently Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) offered an amendment to lift the RAD cap to 250,000 units, and extend the program for an additional year. The amendment was shot down when the FY15 HUD funding bill was passed by the House Appropriations Committee on May 21, 2014.
Major so-called affordable housing developers including Bridge Housing, Related Companies, The Community Builders Inc., Mercy Housing California, the John Stewart Company and others are all jumping on the band wagon to take advantage of the funding shortfalls that have plagued our public housing communities through the years, and they are grabbing as many public housing units that they can get their greedy hands on.
In San Francisco, the scheme to privatize 3,491 public housing units through the RAD program is currently underway involving a number of so-called nonprofit housing developers including the Tabernacle Community Development Corporation, Mission Economic Development Agency, Bridge Housing, Mercy Housing California, John Stewart Company, Japanese American Religious Federation, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, Community Housing Partnership, Bethel A.M.E., San Francisco Housing Development Corporation, Ridgepoint Non-Profit Corporation, Community Housing Partnership, Glide Community Housing, Bernal Heights Housing Corporation, Bridge Housing Corporation, Chinatown Community Development Center, and the for profit housing developer Related California, owned by out-of-state billionaire's Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross.
In a recent article by Multi Housing News, Cynthia Parker, CEO, of Bridge Housing is all pumped up and excited because Bridge Housing was recently awarded 700 public housing units in San Francisco to rehabilitate, manage, and exploit through the RAD program. Parker said, "The Rental Assistance Program is a HUD program, where a housing authority applies to convert their public housing into a more privatized model. In that model, there is more of a Section 8 rental assistance contract that goes with it, which helps support debts, along with other subsidy sources. In this case we'll be receiving those from the City of San Francisco. There are also tax credits. You move the public housing into a RAD program with newly recapitalized buildings."
Like many other poverty pimps all across the nation among the affordable housing industry, Bridge Housing believes that it can make a hefty profit by grabbing as many of San Francisco's public housing units from the poor as is possible, for maximum exploitation. The public housing takeover will help to increase the salaries and compensation of the already overpaid top executives in the organization. Having developed more than 14,000 rental units/homes since 1983 that are worth an estimated value of more than $3 billion, Bridge Housing aims to double it's portfolio by 2017, according to Parker.
The latest annual salaries and compensation figures from Bridge Housing for their top executives from 01/01/2012 and ending 12/31/2012: Cynthia Parker - $491,797. Rebecca Hlebasko - $303,122. Susan Johnson - $287,592. D Valentine - $286,960. Kimberly A. McKay - $282,727. Tom Early - $263,437. Brad Wilbin - $241,524. Phillip Williams - $199,571. Corinne Morrison - $193,734. Tom Casey - $188,991. James Valva - $185,685. Jeff Williams - $173,369. Mari Hikida - $172,732. Rebecca Clarke - $152,219.
The RAD model that Parker praises that privatizes our public housing, places our public housing units at risk of foreclosure, increases the loss of public housing units for the poor, displaces the poor from their housing, and creates significant rent increases per unit to pay off the costs of rehabilitation, loans, and debt. Additionally, the RAD program in San Francisco threatens 200 public housing employees with the loss of their jobs.
Corruption in the launching of the RAD program -
Patrick Costigan who was on loan to HUD from a so-called nonprofit housing organization called "The Community Builders Inc." (TCB), was on leave since January 2011 through part of 2014 from TCB. While he was with HUD as a senior advisor to Secretary Shaun Donovan, Costigan led the launch of the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program (RAD) for HUD, that threatens to displace tens of thousands of public housing residents all across the nation from their housing. Costigan is presently back with TCB after three years with HUD. TCB is a major developer of so-called mixed income housing projects and Costigan has recently been named the Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for the company, after his three year stint with HUD. TCB owns or manages 10,000 apartments in 14 states, including Washington, D.C., according to reports. TCB has also been involved in numerous Hope VI Projects that have displaced many poor families from their long-time public housing communities.
According to TCB: "TCB's property management portfolio consists of 103 properties ranging in size from 6 units to communities of over 600 units. It includes properties with subsidy sources and funding via HOPE VI, Section 8, Section 236, LIHTC, Section 202/811, Section 221(d)(3) programs and provides almost 8,000 households with attractive, safe, and affordable rental housing."
Costigan was on loan to HUD as a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Donovan through an Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) agreement that allowed HUD to enter an agreement with Costigan's employer TCB, and cost-sharing arrangements for the IPA were negotiated between the participating organizations.
In his role as a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, Costigan was the man who led the launch of the RAD program for HUD that may result in the further enrichment of TCB, it's top executive salaries, and their housing portfolio in 14 states, including Washington D.C.
Additionally, documentation in a May 30, 2014 Memorandum from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) claims that HUD "incorrectly" used funding to pay the salary and benefits to the former senior advisor to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.
According to the May 30, 2014 "OIG" Memorandum, HUD reimbursed TCB for the senior advisor's services to the HUD Secretary from the Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH) including the Office of Housing, to pay $622,369 in salary and benefits. However, due to a federal 2011 spending law, for the sake of transparency Congress directed HUD to pay all senior and special advisors to the HUD Secretary from the Office of the Secretary's budget. Additionally, $2,365 in funds was overpaid by HUD, according to the memo.
The OIG memo claims that HUD "may" have violated the Antideficiency Act (ADA) by paying TCB from the wrong coffers. In the memo it states, "according to a July 26, 2010 House of Representatives report, ''...all senior advisors to the Secretary should be funded directly through the Office of the Secretary. In addition, a HUD appropriations attorney wrote in a January 13, 2011, email that a special advisor to the Office of the Secretary would need to be paid by that office and not another office within HUD."
HUD failed to follow the direction given to it in the House report including the guidance provided by it's own appropriations attorney, and instead had reimbursed TCB for the senior advisor's services from the wrong coffers, namely PIH and the Office of Housing funds. As a direct result, HUD "may" have violated the Antideficiency Act (ADA).
Records also show that HUD payed TCB around $205,000 a year whle Costigan was on loan to HUD as a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Donovan for 3 years. However, the latest tax 990 filing records filed by TCB reveal that Costigan was actually paid $177,500 by TCB, including other compensation of $23,182.
The latest annual salaries and compensation figures from The Community Builders (TCB) top executives beginning 10/01/2011 and ending 09/30/2012: Patrick E. Clancy - $334,616 plus $$26,563. Bartholomew J Mitchell III - $310,000 plus $7,031. Mick Vergura $241,200 plus $29,637. Beverly J Bates - $241,900 plus $9,100. Willie M Jones - $241,900 plus $15,959. Karen Kelleher - $212,700 plus $21,524. Daniel Lorraine - $207,700 plus $18,046. Homayoun Sarabi - $196,266 plus $11,433. Robert Fossi - $189,127 plus $14,451. Jan Brodie - $187,626 plus $21,552. Terri Hamilton Brown - $179,220. James F Rushford - $121,968 plus $2,158.
Records also reveal that The Community Builders Inc., made $60,0000 in political contributions in 1998, $80,000 in contributions during 1999, $40,000 in contributions in 2001, and $140,000 in 2002.
Additional records reveal that in 2008 Patrick M. Costigan made a political contribution of $1,950, including $850 during the presidential election, plus $3,500 during 2012, including $500 to Dnc Services Corporation.
It was reported on June 11, 2014 that 60 public housing residents and union workers in the City of Baltimore held a protest against the plan to privatize and sell thousands of Baltimore's public housing units to some private housing developers. According to reports, the protesters are afraid that the plan would lead to displaced residents, lost jobs, and less available public housing for the poor. The city plans to privatize more than 4,000 public housing units out of 11,000 public housing units.
According to reports protesters yelled, "Housing is a human right," and held signs reading "Rethink RAD." Sharon Jones, president of the tenant's council at Bel-Park Tower, said the plan is "their way of bullying us out of housing." The protesters are very concerned that developers would one day raise the rents, pricing them out of their housing.
In an article recently published with the San Franciso Bay View, it reported on a number of public housing residents that are concerned about the RAD program who appeared at a May 28 meeting at the Bayview Library. Additionally, members of Poor Magazine have been holding their own truth and informational meetings across San Francisco to inform public housing residents that RAD is the latest removal program of poor people from their neighborhoods.
Meanwhile the promoters of the RAD program including Patrick M. Cositgan of TCB who was a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Donovan, Ben Metcalf a senior advisor to the Acting Assistant Secretary for Housing/FHA Commissioner for Multi Family Housing for HUD, and Kathleen Foster who is a RAD contractor for the Federal Practice Group, have held webinars to promote the privatization and selling of our nation's 1.5 million public housing units owned by 3,100 Public Housing Authorities across the nation.
In his push to destroy our nation's public housing program, Patrick M. Costigan has been trying to convince Congress and HUD officials that privatized mixed income housing developments are an antidote to urban poverty, and Costigan believes that poor people should not live together in public housing projects.
In a 10 page comment (rant) by Costigan in regards to whether or not mixed income housing is an antidote to poverty, Costigan writes; "Researchers know and much of the public knows that a large concentration of public and assisted housing in any urban neighborhood does not lead to good outcomes for families, the surrounding neighborhood, or even large parts of cities. It is no surprise then that community after community in cities and suburbs alike - and a large number of advocates for the poor continue to oppose the development of projects that offer only low-income housing."
Despite the ridiculous comments made by Patrick Costigan, I have not yet heard any poor people complain about the federal government building low-income housing for the poor. In fact, I often hear from poor people who complain that the federal government does not build enough low-income housing for the poor, elderly and disabled.
The mantra currently being used by Patrick Costigan and countless other poverty pimps all across the nation is that poor people should not be living together. This is their excuse to push for the privatization of our 1.5 million public housing units, so that the poverty pimps can grab our nation's public housing units from the poor, while raking in tens of billions of dollars in profits, in the process.
Corruption in the RAD program? Carol Galante former CEO of Bridge Housing joins HUD, then helps to initiate the RAD program since joining HUD. Ben Metcalf, also from Bridge Housing joins HUD and promotes the RAD program. And magically, coincidentally, or just thanks to plain old dumb luck, recently Bridge Housing was awarded 700 public housing units in San Francisco as part of the RAD program thanks to the efforts of Carol Galante and Ben Metcalf, formerly of Bridge Housing.
Is this just plain old dumb luck, or corruption in the RAD program?
That is up for you to decide.
Carol Galante & Ben Metcalf, formerly of Bridge Housing -
Carol Galante former CEO of Bridge Housing joined HUD in 2009, and played an important key role in Administration initiatives, including Choice Neighborhoods, the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and other interagency alignment efforts. Click here [http://tinyurl.com/6nwctu6]
In January 2010, through a special program under which he remained a BRIDGE employee, Ben was assigned to serve as Senior Advisor to then Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing Programs Carol Galante (former BRIDGE President & CEO and current Federal Housing Administration Commissioner and Assistant Secretary for Housing at HUD).
Bridge News: SAN FRANCISCO, CA, August 5, 2013—Ben Metcalf, a former Project Manager for BRIDGE Housing, has been appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing Programs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), effective August 5. Click here [http://tinyurl.com/nrzbgh2]
The promoters of the RAD program including Patrick M. Cositgan of TCB who was a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Donovan, Ben Metcalf (formerly of Bridge Housing) a senior advisor to the Acting Assistant Secretary for Housing/FHA Commissioner for Multi Family Housing for HUD, and Kathleen Foster who is a RAD contractor for the Federal Practice Group, have held webinars to promote the privatization and selling of our nation's 1.5 million public housing units owned by 3,100 Public Housing Authorities across the nation.
Click here [http://tinyurl.com/ntdqclm]
In a recent article by Multi Housing News, Cynthia Parker, CEO, of Bridge Housing is all pumped up and excited because Bridge Housing was recently awarded 700 public housing units in San Francisco to rehabilitate, manage, and exploit through the RAD program. Parker said, "The Rental Assistance Program is a HUD program, where a housing authority applies to convert their public housing into a more privatized model. In that model, there is more of a Section 8 rental assistance contract that goes with it, which helps support debts, along with other subsidy sources. In this case we'll be receiving those from the City of San Francisco. There are also tax credits. You move the public housing into a RAD program with newly recapitalized buildings." Click here [http://tinyurl.com/kdf5ohk]
A plethora of poverty pimps from the so-called nonprofit affordable housing industry are targeting our nation's 1.5 million public housing units for takeover and exploitation through the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, and they are moving quickly to grab as many public housing units as is possible.
Known as the "affordable housing mafia" by poor people who find that they cannot afford to reside in so-called affordable housing projects, most so-called nonprofit housing developers have minimum income requirements that discriminate against the poor.
After starving our nation's public housing program for many years with a lack of adequate funding, Congress has allowed 60,000 public housing units to be privatized and sold under the new RAD program recently. However, applications seeking commitments to privatize 180,000 public housing units have been offered by members of the so-called affordable housing industry from all across the nation.
The poverty pimps have done their best to lobby and oil the wheels of Congress with their campaign contributions to allow them to grab more public housing units than is currently allowed, and recently Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) offered an amendment to lift the RAD cap to 250,000 units, and extend the program for an additional year. The amendment was shot down when the FY15 HUD funding bill was passed by the House Appropriations Committee on May 21, 2014.
Major so-called affordable housing developers including Bridge Housing, Related Companies, The Community Builders Inc., Mercy Housing California, the John Stewart Company and others are all jumping on the band wagon to take advantage of the funding shortfalls that have plagued our public housing communities through the years, and they are grabbing as many public housing units that they can get their greedy hands on.
In San Francisco, the scheme to privatize 3,491 public housing units through the RAD program is currently underway involving a number of so-called nonprofit housing developers including the Tabernacle Community Development Corporation, Mission Economic Development Agency, Bridge Housing, Mercy Housing California, John Stewart Company, Japanese American Religious Federation, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, Community Housing Partnership, Bethel A.M.E., San Francisco Housing Development Corporation, Ridgepoint Non-Profit Corporation, Community Housing Partnership, Glide Community Housing, Bernal Heights Housing Corporation, Bridge Housing Corporation, Chinatown Community Development Center, and the for profit housing developer Related California, owned by out-of-state billionaire's Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross.
In a recent article by Multi Housing News, Cynthia Parker, CEO, of Bridge Housing is all pumped up and excited because Bridge Housing was recently awarded 700 public housing units in San Francisco to rehabilitate, manage, and exploit through the RAD program. Parker said, "The Rental Assistance Program is a HUD program, where a housing authority applies to convert their public housing into a more privatized model. In that model, there is more of a Section 8 rental assistance contract that goes with it, which helps support debts, along with other subsidy sources. In this case we'll be receiving those from the City of San Francisco. There are also tax credits. You move the public housing into a RAD program with newly recapitalized buildings."
Like many other poverty pimps all across the nation among the affordable housing industry, Bridge Housing believes that it can make a hefty profit by grabbing as many of San Francisco's public housing units from the poor as is possible, for maximum exploitation. The public housing takeover will help to increase the salaries and compensation of the already overpaid top executives in the organization. Having developed more than 14,000 rental units/homes since 1983 that are worth an estimated value of more than $3 billion, Bridge Housing aims to double it's portfolio by 2017, according to Parker.
The latest annual salaries and compensation figures from Bridge Housing for their top executives from 01/01/2012 and ending 12/31/2012: Cynthia Parker - $491,797. Rebecca Hlebasko - $303,122. Susan Johnson - $287,592. D Valentine - $286,960. Kimberly A. McKay - $282,727. Tom Early - $263,437. Brad Wilbin - $241,524. Phillip Williams - $199,571. Corinne Morrison - $193,734. Tom Casey - $188,991. James Valva - $185,685. Jeff Williams - $173,369. Mari Hikida - $172,732. Rebecca Clarke - $152,219.
The RAD model that Parker praises that privatizes our public housing, places our public housing units at risk of foreclosure, increases the loss of public housing units for the poor, displaces the poor from their housing, and creates significant rent increases per unit to pay off the costs of rehabilitation, loans, and debt. Additionally, the RAD program in San Francisco threatens 200 public housing employees with the loss of their jobs.
Corruption in the launching of the RAD program -
Patrick Costigan who was on loan to HUD from a so-called nonprofit housing organization called "The Community Builders Inc." (TCB), was on leave since January 2011 through part of 2014 from TCB. While he was with HUD as a senior advisor to Secretary Shaun Donovan, Costigan led the launch of the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program (RAD) for HUD, that threatens to displace tens of thousands of public housing residents all across the nation from their housing. Costigan is presently back with TCB after three years with HUD. TCB is a major developer of so-called mixed income housing projects and Costigan has recently been named the Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for the company, after his three year stint with HUD. TCB owns or manages 10,000 apartments in 14 states, including Washington, D.C., according to reports. TCB has also been involved in numerous Hope VI Projects that have displaced many poor families from their long-time public housing communities.
According to TCB: "TCB's property management portfolio consists of 103 properties ranging in size from 6 units to communities of over 600 units. It includes properties with subsidy sources and funding via HOPE VI, Section 8, Section 236, LIHTC, Section 202/811, Section 221(d)(3) programs and provides almost 8,000 households with attractive, safe, and affordable rental housing."
Costigan was on loan to HUD as a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Donovan through an Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) agreement that allowed HUD to enter an agreement with Costigan's employer TCB, and cost-sharing arrangements for the IPA were negotiated between the participating organizations.
In his role as a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, Costigan was the man who led the launch of the RAD program for HUD that may result in the further enrichment of TCB, it's top executive salaries, and their housing portfolio in 14 states, including Washington D.C.
Additionally, documentation in a May 30, 2014 Memorandum from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) claims that HUD "incorrectly" used funding to pay the salary and benefits to the former senior advisor to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.
According to the May 30, 2014 "OIG" Memorandum, HUD reimbursed TCB for the senior advisor's services to the HUD Secretary from the Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH) including the Office of Housing, to pay $622,369 in salary and benefits. However, due to a federal 2011 spending law, for the sake of transparency Congress directed HUD to pay all senior and special advisors to the HUD Secretary from the Office of the Secretary's budget. Additionally, $2,365 in funds was overpaid by HUD, according to the memo.
The OIG memo claims that HUD "may" have violated the Antideficiency Act (ADA) by paying TCB from the wrong coffers. In the memo it states, "according to a July 26, 2010 House of Representatives report, ''...all senior advisors to the Secretary should be funded directly through the Office of the Secretary. In addition, a HUD appropriations attorney wrote in a January 13, 2011, email that a special advisor to the Office of the Secretary would need to be paid by that office and not another office within HUD."
HUD failed to follow the direction given to it in the House report including the guidance provided by it's own appropriations attorney, and instead had reimbursed TCB for the senior advisor's services from the wrong coffers, namely PIH and the Office of Housing funds. As a direct result, HUD "may" have violated the Antideficiency Act (ADA).
Records also show that HUD payed TCB around $205,000 a year whle Costigan was on loan to HUD as a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Donovan for 3 years. However, the latest tax 990 filing records filed by TCB reveal that Costigan was actually paid $177,500 by TCB, including other compensation of $23,182.
The latest annual salaries and compensation figures from The Community Builders (TCB) top executives beginning 10/01/2011 and ending 09/30/2012: Patrick E. Clancy - $334,616 plus $$26,563. Bartholomew J Mitchell III - $310,000 plus $7,031. Mick Vergura $241,200 plus $29,637. Beverly J Bates - $241,900 plus $9,100. Willie M Jones - $241,900 plus $15,959. Karen Kelleher - $212,700 plus $21,524. Daniel Lorraine - $207,700 plus $18,046. Homayoun Sarabi - $196,266 plus $11,433. Robert Fossi - $189,127 plus $14,451. Jan Brodie - $187,626 plus $21,552. Terri Hamilton Brown - $179,220. James F Rushford - $121,968 plus $2,158.
Records also reveal that The Community Builders Inc., made $60,0000 in political contributions in 1998, $80,000 in contributions during 1999, $40,000 in contributions in 2001, and $140,000 in 2002.
Additional records reveal that in 2008 Patrick M. Costigan made a political contribution of $1,950, including $850 during the presidential election, plus $3,500 during 2012, including $500 to Dnc Services Corporation.
It was reported on June 11, 2014 that 60 public housing residents and union workers in the City of Baltimore held a protest against the plan to privatize and sell thousands of Baltimore's public housing units to some private housing developers. According to reports, the protesters are afraid that the plan would lead to displaced residents, lost jobs, and less available public housing for the poor. The city plans to privatize more than 4,000 public housing units out of 11,000 public housing units.
According to reports protesters yelled, "Housing is a human right," and held signs reading "Rethink RAD." Sharon Jones, president of the tenant's council at Bel-Park Tower, said the plan is "their way of bullying us out of housing." The protesters are very concerned that developers would one day raise the rents, pricing them out of their housing.
In an article recently published with the San Franciso Bay View, it reported on a number of public housing residents that are concerned about the RAD program who appeared at a May 28 meeting at the Bayview Library. Additionally, members of Poor Magazine have been holding their own truth and informational meetings across San Francisco to inform public housing residents that RAD is the latest removal program of poor people from their neighborhoods.
Meanwhile the promoters of the RAD program including Patrick M. Cositgan of TCB who was a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Donovan, Ben Metcalf a senior advisor to the Acting Assistant Secretary for Housing/FHA Commissioner for Multi Family Housing for HUD, and Kathleen Foster who is a RAD contractor for the Federal Practice Group, have held webinars to promote the privatization and selling of our nation's 1.5 million public housing units owned by 3,100 Public Housing Authorities across the nation.
In his push to destroy our nation's public housing program, Patrick M. Costigan has been trying to convince Congress and HUD officials that privatized mixed income housing developments are an antidote to urban poverty, and Costigan believes that poor people should not live together in public housing projects.
In a 10 page comment (rant) by Costigan in regards to whether or not mixed income housing is an antidote to poverty, Costigan writes; "Researchers know and much of the public knows that a large concentration of public and assisted housing in any urban neighborhood does not lead to good outcomes for families, the surrounding neighborhood, or even large parts of cities. It is no surprise then that community after community in cities and suburbs alike - and a large number of advocates for the poor continue to oppose the development of projects that offer only low-income housing."
Despite the ridiculous comments made by Patrick Costigan, I have not yet heard any poor people complain about the federal government building low-income housing for the poor. In fact, I often hear from poor people who complain that the federal government does not build enough low-income housing for the poor, elderly and disabled.
The mantra currently being used by Patrick Costigan and countless other poverty pimps all across the nation is that poor people should not be living together. This is their excuse to push for the privatization of our 1.5 million public housing units, so that the poverty pimps can grab our nation's public housing units from the poor, while raking in tens of billions of dollars in profits, in the process.
Corruption in the RAD program? Carol Galante former CEO of Bridge Housing joins HUD, then helps to initiate the RAD program since joining HUD. Ben Metcalf, also from Bridge Housing joins HUD and promotes the RAD program. And magically, coincidentally, or just thanks to plain old dumb luck, recently Bridge Housing was awarded 700 public housing units in San Francisco as part of the RAD program thanks to the efforts of Carol Galante and Ben Metcalf, formerly of Bridge Housing.
Is this just plain old dumb luck, or corruption in the RAD program?
That is up for you to decide.
Carol Galante & Ben Metcalf, formerly of Bridge Housing -
Carol Galante former CEO of Bridge Housing joined HUD in 2009, and played an important key role in Administration initiatives, including Choice Neighborhoods, the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and other interagency alignment efforts. Click here [http://tinyurl.com/6nwctu6]
In January 2010, through a special program under which he remained a BRIDGE employee, Ben was assigned to serve as Senior Advisor to then Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing Programs Carol Galante (former BRIDGE President & CEO and current Federal Housing Administration Commissioner and Assistant Secretary for Housing at HUD).
Bridge News: SAN FRANCISCO, CA, August 5, 2013—Ben Metcalf, a former Project Manager for BRIDGE Housing, has been appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing Programs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), effective August 5. Click here [http://tinyurl.com/nrzbgh2]
The promoters of the RAD program including Patrick M. Cositgan of TCB who was a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Donovan, Ben Metcalf (formerly of Bridge Housing) a senior advisor to the Acting Assistant Secretary for Housing/FHA Commissioner for Multi Family Housing for HUD, and Kathleen Foster who is a RAD contractor for the Federal Practice Group, have held webinars to promote the privatization and selling of our nation's 1.5 million public housing units owned by 3,100 Public Housing Authorities across the nation.
Click here [http://tinyurl.com/ntdqclm]
In a recent article by Multi Housing News, Cynthia Parker, CEO, of Bridge Housing is all pumped up and excited because Bridge Housing was recently awarded 700 public housing units in San Francisco to rehabilitate, manage, and exploit through the RAD program. Parker said, "The Rental Assistance Program is a HUD program, where a housing authority applies to convert their public housing into a more privatized model. In that model, there is more of a Section 8 rental assistance contract that goes with it, which helps support debts, along with other subsidy sources. In this case we'll be receiving those from the City of San Francisco. There are also tax credits. You move the public housing into a RAD program with newly recapitalized buildings." Click here [http://tinyurl.com/kdf5ohk]
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Landlords of San Francisco eagerly evicting elderly and disabled tenants
"Section 8 evictions in S.F. hit home"
2014-05-13 by Heather Knight from "San Francisco Chronicle" [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Section-8-evictions-in-S-F-hit-home-5472656.php]:
Roman Shatsov, 84, sat at the grand piano in his apartment in San Francisco's Outer Richmond neighborhood. The onetime professional singer's deep, booming voice filled the living room as he sang a song in Russian about how he'd met his love many years ago and knows she's still the one.
His wife, Faina Burovaya, 82, sat on the couch, her cheeks blushing and her eyes twinkling. Struggling with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, she is frequently confused - but the familiarity of being in her longtime apartment provides comfort.
That connection could soon be lost as the elderly couple are fighting eviction. Their pro-bono lawyer says their landlord is trying to get low-income Section 8 voucher holders out and new tenants able to pay today's mind-boggling market rates in.
Shatsov and Burovaya, along with three other Section 8 households in the same building on Geary Boulevard, received an eviction notice last month giving them 90 days to move out.
The complex was built after 1979, so rent control doesn't apply, and landlords who house Section 8 tenants can evict them for "business or economic reasons." Now, the elderly couple, like an increasing number of other Section 8 voucher holders, are scrambling to maintain a foothold in this expensive city.
The San Francisco Housing Authority manages the local Section 8 program, which awards federally funded housing vouchers to low-income, disabled or elderly people to use toward rent in private apartments and houses. There are 9,500 households receiving Section 8 vouchers in San Francisco.
2010 market rates -
The vouchers' value - $1,473 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,858 for two bedrooms - is set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development using a complicated formula. Last changed in 2011, it is based on fair market rates from 2008 to 2010. Rents in San Francisco have skyrocketed since then, but the voucher values haven't budged.
Gene Gibson, spokeswoman for the regional HUD office, said another calculation will be made in the next year, but until then it's unknown whether there will be an increase in the voucher value or for how much.
Tenants can make up the difference between the voucher value and their rent, but even that is increasingly not enough - and attorneys say some of their clients are paying 70 percent of their small incomes toward rent in an effort to keep their apartments.
The widely accepted rule of thumb is that people should not pay more than 30 percent of their income toward housing or the housing is unaffordable.
Spike in evictions -
Attorneys say that they've seen a spike in evictions of Section 8 tenants in the past year and that once a voucher holder is booted, they have no choice but to leave San Francisco because there are simply no apartments in the city that are vacant and available for those rates.
Just last week, housing-rights advocates staged a protest at a Tenderloin apartment building where several Section 8 households were given 90-day eviction notices in February.
Rose Dennis, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Housing Authority, said the agency works closely with landlords to keep Section 8 tenants housed and is hosting a workshop this summer to educate landlords about the program.
'Not paying enough' -
Irina Naduhovskaya, an attorney with Bay Area Legal Aid, is representing Shatsov and Burovaya pro bono, as well as other Section 8 tenants around the city who find themselves facing evictions.
"You can't blame the landlords for wanting more money for their units," she said. "But the Housing Authority is not paying enough - the vouchers are becoming worthless. And the city could be doing more to protect tenants."
She has asked for an extension for Shatsov and Burovaya because of Burovaya's disabilities, but holds out very little hope of staving off the eviction altogether.
Frank Kim is an attorney with Eviction Assistance, a real estate law firm in the Inner Richmond that helps landlords evict tenants. He represents William McDonagh, who owns the building on Geary and has served eviction notices to his Section 8 tenants.
Kim said that because of potential litigation, he couldn't say much. But he pointed out that McDonagh is "a disabled, private individual who relies on his rental income for his retirement and for the future support of his family."
He added that McDonagh has not raised rent on his units to market value or evicted tenants for at least 20 years, even though he could have because the building isn't subject to rent control.
Shatsov and Burovaya share their two-bedroom unit with their daughter, Alla Shatsova, 57, who works as their in-home care provider. The family has lived there for 11 years. They pay $2,200 in rent every month: the $1,858 voucher value and $342 in their own money.
Russian community -
Their daughter said her parents have become a part of the neighborhood's Russian community and can walk or take short bus rides everywhere they need to go, including doctor's appointments. She said losing that sense of familiarity and safety would be crushing for her mother.
"You look at Craigslist, you look at the prices," Shatsova said, shaking her head. "We have nowhere to go. It's so stressful, and we don't know what to do."
Her family immigrated to the United States in 1999, fleeing anti-Semitism in their native Belarus. Her father recounted Germans bombing his town in World War II and his 2-year-old sister being killed.
Through tears, he said he has been having recurrent nightmares about that time, brought on, he thinks, by the stress of not having anywhere to go.
"When I came here, I felt I was protected," he said, hastily apologizing for his emotions.
Shatsova said that her mother seems to understand the looming eviction despite her illnesses and told her daughter, "I know it's hard - keep moving."
But Shatsova said her parents shouldn't have to worry about this.
"At that age," she said, "you want a lawn, grandkids - and no eviction."
2014-05-13 by Heather Knight from "San Francisco Chronicle" [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Section-8-evictions-in-S-F-hit-home-5472656.php]:
Roman Shatsov, 84, sat at the grand piano in his apartment in San Francisco's Outer Richmond neighborhood. The onetime professional singer's deep, booming voice filled the living room as he sang a song in Russian about how he'd met his love many years ago and knows she's still the one.
His wife, Faina Burovaya, 82, sat on the couch, her cheeks blushing and her eyes twinkling. Struggling with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, she is frequently confused - but the familiarity of being in her longtime apartment provides comfort.
That connection could soon be lost as the elderly couple are fighting eviction. Their pro-bono lawyer says their landlord is trying to get low-income Section 8 voucher holders out and new tenants able to pay today's mind-boggling market rates in.
Shatsov and Burovaya, along with three other Section 8 households in the same building on Geary Boulevard, received an eviction notice last month giving them 90 days to move out.
The complex was built after 1979, so rent control doesn't apply, and landlords who house Section 8 tenants can evict them for "business or economic reasons." Now, the elderly couple, like an increasing number of other Section 8 voucher holders, are scrambling to maintain a foothold in this expensive city.
The San Francisco Housing Authority manages the local Section 8 program, which awards federally funded housing vouchers to low-income, disabled or elderly people to use toward rent in private apartments and houses. There are 9,500 households receiving Section 8 vouchers in San Francisco.
2010 market rates -
The vouchers' value - $1,473 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,858 for two bedrooms - is set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development using a complicated formula. Last changed in 2011, it is based on fair market rates from 2008 to 2010. Rents in San Francisco have skyrocketed since then, but the voucher values haven't budged.
Gene Gibson, spokeswoman for the regional HUD office, said another calculation will be made in the next year, but until then it's unknown whether there will be an increase in the voucher value or for how much.
Tenants can make up the difference between the voucher value and their rent, but even that is increasingly not enough - and attorneys say some of their clients are paying 70 percent of their small incomes toward rent in an effort to keep their apartments.
The widely accepted rule of thumb is that people should not pay more than 30 percent of their income toward housing or the housing is unaffordable.
Spike in evictions -
Attorneys say that they've seen a spike in evictions of Section 8 tenants in the past year and that once a voucher holder is booted, they have no choice but to leave San Francisco because there are simply no apartments in the city that are vacant and available for those rates.
Just last week, housing-rights advocates staged a protest at a Tenderloin apartment building where several Section 8 households were given 90-day eviction notices in February.
Rose Dennis, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Housing Authority, said the agency works closely with landlords to keep Section 8 tenants housed and is hosting a workshop this summer to educate landlords about the program.
'Not paying enough' -
Irina Naduhovskaya, an attorney with Bay Area Legal Aid, is representing Shatsov and Burovaya pro bono, as well as other Section 8 tenants around the city who find themselves facing evictions.
"You can't blame the landlords for wanting more money for their units," she said. "But the Housing Authority is not paying enough - the vouchers are becoming worthless. And the city could be doing more to protect tenants."
She has asked for an extension for Shatsov and Burovaya because of Burovaya's disabilities, but holds out very little hope of staving off the eviction altogether.
Frank Kim is an attorney with Eviction Assistance, a real estate law firm in the Inner Richmond that helps landlords evict tenants. He represents William McDonagh, who owns the building on Geary and has served eviction notices to his Section 8 tenants.
Kim said that because of potential litigation, he couldn't say much. But he pointed out that McDonagh is "a disabled, private individual who relies on his rental income for his retirement and for the future support of his family."
He added that McDonagh has not raised rent on his units to market value or evicted tenants for at least 20 years, even though he could have because the building isn't subject to rent control.
Shatsov and Burovaya share their two-bedroom unit with their daughter, Alla Shatsova, 57, who works as their in-home care provider. The family has lived there for 11 years. They pay $2,200 in rent every month: the $1,858 voucher value and $342 in their own money.
Russian community -
Their daughter said her parents have become a part of the neighborhood's Russian community and can walk or take short bus rides everywhere they need to go, including doctor's appointments. She said losing that sense of familiarity and safety would be crushing for her mother.
"You look at Craigslist, you look at the prices," Shatsova said, shaking her head. "We have nowhere to go. It's so stressful, and we don't know what to do."
Her family immigrated to the United States in 1999, fleeing anti-Semitism in their native Belarus. Her father recounted Germans bombing his town in World War II and his 2-year-old sister being killed.
Through tears, he said he has been having recurrent nightmares about that time, brought on, he thinks, by the stress of not having anywhere to go.
"When I came here, I felt I was protected," he said, hastily apologizing for his emotions.
Shatsova said that her mother seems to understand the looming eviction despite her illnesses and told her daughter, "I know it's hard - keep moving."
But Shatsova said her parents shouldn't have to worry about this.
"At that age," she said, "you want a lawn, grandkids - and no eviction."
Friday, April 25, 2014
Justice for Sabrina Carter's family!
"A family destroyed by eviction", 2014-04-16 by Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia, Poor News Network [sfbayview.com/2014/a-family-destroyed-by-eviction]:
Tiny – or Lisa Gray-Garcia – is co-founder with her Mama Dee and co-editor with Tony Robles of POOR Magazine and its many projects and author of “Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America,” published by City Lights. She can be reached at deeandtiny@poormagazine.org. Visit [www.tinygraygarcia.com] and [www.racepovertymediajustice.org].
---
Bang, bang, bang … “Sheriffs here. Open the door! You have to vacate the premises.” On Wednesday, April 8, at 9 a.m., after weeks of last minute legal maneuvers, unanswered calls to the mayor and multiple pleas for a pro bono lawyer to save the single mama Sabrina Carter and her three sons from one of the most unjust evictions I have ever witnessed, we were exhausted. The San Francisco sheriffs, standing shoulder to shoulder with the sold-out housing managers, were outside her door in the Plaza East apartments to change the locks and throw her and her sons into the street.
They were outside the door of Sabrina’s no longer public – now privatized – housing in the Fill-no-Mo, like they were outside me and my mama’s door and so many other people’s doors who were developed, rent-raised, gentrified, Negro-removed and destroyed by this capitalist system that encourages, supports and demands moves inspired by greed.
In these deadly, sci-fi-like moments, when entire families’ lives are destroyed by colonizers’ papers and politricksters’ lies, with names like unlawful detainers, notices to evict and right to possession, time itself moves so strangely slow and so terrifyingly fast all at the same time. Suddenly, before any of us could catch our breath, Sabrina and her youngest son were standing there in the early morning sun, holding back the tears as they watched large plywood boards nail shut what used to be their home.
Sabrina’s family’s tragedy of injustice has everything to do with the dismantling, destroying and privatizing of the public housing system in the U.S., which is rooted in the misleading HUD acronym known as RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration) and the ways that racism and policing and the criminalization of young Black and Brown men are used to implement that privatization.
Sabrina’s crisis began when her oldest, then 17-year-old son, like so many youngsters, began to be stalked and profiled by a local police officer who obsessively over-polices the one block of majority African descendent residents at Plaza East [http://sfbayview.com/2014/public-housing-privatization-and-ellis-act-evictions-are-stealing-our-homes-our-lives/]. When I was sitting with the family on their front stoop, he circled Sabrina’s one tiny block over 45 times within one hour.
Multiple profiling of her son eventually led to false charges against the young man, which then led to the building management forcing the mother to file stay away orders against her own young adult son and eventually stipulated agreements she could never keep and ultimately eviction to make way for richer, whiter, gentrified tenants which make this building more desirable in the privatization pool.
“Plaza East is not part of RAD,” one of the managers who presided smugly over Sabrina’s eviction said at a tenants meeting that the POOR Magazine family was invited to a week prior. After his assertion that their apartments were not part of the filthy RAD pool where everyone from non-profit organizations to for-profit corporations like Goldman Sachs were making bank, he went on to contradict himself in one paragraph.
“Well, actually the San Francisco Housing Authority subsidies are now going to come from RAD and we are going to start moving people out who are not fully inhabiting their apartments,” he concluded, thoroughly confusing everyone in the meeting. He went on to cite the three projects that are slated for demolition, as if the demolition of thousands of people’s homes were nothing more than having a cup of coffee and a donut.
Standing on the street holding this mama and her son, dreams, memories, altars, mementos, toys and herstories of this family’s life were permanently lost in a series of hefty bags and clutched blankets. These moments can’t be described and yet I have tried for years. The tears they cause could fill an ocean and no matter how conscious, how revolutionary, and how much I know them far too intimately, I am still destroyed by them.
We stood there, POOR Magazine co-madres and reporters Queennandi, Jewnbug and me, along with Sabrina’s neighbors and extended family, holding onto her 13-year-old young warrior son and onto her, a lost and overwhelmed mama.
My mind raced with the moves of the last few weeks. The desperate legal saves comrade Leo Stegman and I did for the family at POOR Magazine’s Revolutionary Legal Advocacy Project. The media justice campaign and the countless stories written with POOR and PNN, the San Francisco Bay View and Manilatown Heritage Foundation.
The thousands of caring people who made phone calls to the sold-out mayor, Ed Lee, to try to get him to intervene in this illegal and unjust eviction but who never did because of course it was Lee who invited the private developers McCormack Baron, who bought this public housing, and their lying lawyers, Bornstein and Bornstein, into this town. Not coincidentally, these are the same lawyers who have been evicting Ellis Acted elders and families from their long-time homes by the thousands, while teaching landlords how to be better capitalists and “not care.”
We are still looking for a lawyer to challenge this case. The unjustness of this story has no words.
If you are a lawyer who can help file a state challenge to Sabrina’s case, please contact us. POOR Magazine will also be holding an organizing and info meeting in the Bayview branch of the SF Public Library in May entitled RAD = ERADICATION. Please stay tuned.
Sabrina, left, and her sons sing spirit at City Hall on March 11. Mayor Ed Lee, formerly a civil rights lawyer specializing in eviction defense, turned a deaf ear. – Photo: PNN
Poem for privatized, displaced mamas -
“Been fighting for 30 years and I keep losing. Why keep fighting when I’m never gonna win?” said one young privatized, gentrified mama in so much pain to me on the phone as I screamed out to touch her and love her no matter what …
“Noooooooooooooooooo,” I shouted to her and to all the mamaz, the elders, the gentrified and the stepped on.
To the mamaz who hold their heads up – even when there ain’t no more strength in their necks, whose eyes look forward filled with tears, whose hands hold so much, whose souls were never built to be killed over and over again.
These stolen lands weren’t created by the gentrifiers and all the haters, who make these laws and live on all this paper.
Dear Mama Sabrina, Mama Dee, Mama Mimi and all the mamaz who never did nothing but care for their children in racist Amerikkka, I’m raising Superbabymama from the ashes of 1999 dot com evictions. I’m calling upon Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer and Quetzalcoatl – I’m calling upon Mama Earth and Mama Creator.
The brutality of eviction and gentrification is so deep and wrong and filled with so much white-supremacist monetary lies and deep hatred. THIS is our Freedom Ride, family, and all of us mamaz and ancestor mamaz are needed.
Hold out your hearts in the wind. Call to your ancestor mamaz to hold these children and these women.
Beware this lie of civilization and corporate crafted institutional statehood. Hold out your hearts, mamas – cuz you know what I’m saying. Hold out your hearts, young mamaz, older mamaz, grandmothers and babies,
‘Cause the river of pain is too great to be sedated, and the women and children are about to go completely CRAZY.
The sounds will be loud and the vibe will be amazing –
‘Cause we all KNOW Superbabymama don’t play.
You know you’ve been evicted when your door is covered with plywood and nailed shut by a sheriff’s deputy. San Francisco might as well hang a “No Trespassing” sign over the whole city, as gentrification sweeps out poor folks at an unprecedented rate, with “progressive” leaders like Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi presiding over countless thousands of evictions. – Photos: PNN
Please help Sabrina and her sons find a good home and a champion to help her fight for justice. – Photo: PNN
Tiny – or Lisa Gray-Garcia – is co-founder with her Mama Dee and co-editor with Tony Robles of POOR Magazine and its many projects and author of “Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America,” published by City Lights. She can be reached at deeandtiny@poormagazine.org. Visit [www.tinygraygarcia.com] and [www.racepovertymediajustice.org].
---
Bang, bang, bang … “Sheriffs here. Open the door! You have to vacate the premises.” On Wednesday, April 8, at 9 a.m., after weeks of last minute legal maneuvers, unanswered calls to the mayor and multiple pleas for a pro bono lawyer to save the single mama Sabrina Carter and her three sons from one of the most unjust evictions I have ever witnessed, we were exhausted. The San Francisco sheriffs, standing shoulder to shoulder with the sold-out housing managers, were outside her door in the Plaza East apartments to change the locks and throw her and her sons into the street.
They were outside the door of Sabrina’s no longer public – now privatized – housing in the Fill-no-Mo, like they were outside me and my mama’s door and so many other people’s doors who were developed, rent-raised, gentrified, Negro-removed and destroyed by this capitalist system that encourages, supports and demands moves inspired by greed.
In these deadly, sci-fi-like moments, when entire families’ lives are destroyed by colonizers’ papers and politricksters’ lies, with names like unlawful detainers, notices to evict and right to possession, time itself moves so strangely slow and so terrifyingly fast all at the same time. Suddenly, before any of us could catch our breath, Sabrina and her youngest son were standing there in the early morning sun, holding back the tears as they watched large plywood boards nail shut what used to be their home.
Sabrina’s family’s tragedy of injustice has everything to do with the dismantling, destroying and privatizing of the public housing system in the U.S., which is rooted in the misleading HUD acronym known as RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration) and the ways that racism and policing and the criminalization of young Black and Brown men are used to implement that privatization.
Sabrina’s crisis began when her oldest, then 17-year-old son, like so many youngsters, began to be stalked and profiled by a local police officer who obsessively over-polices the one block of majority African descendent residents at Plaza East [http://sfbayview.com/2014/public-housing-privatization-and-ellis-act-evictions-are-stealing-our-homes-our-lives/]. When I was sitting with the family on their front stoop, he circled Sabrina’s one tiny block over 45 times within one hour.
Multiple profiling of her son eventually led to false charges against the young man, which then led to the building management forcing the mother to file stay away orders against her own young adult son and eventually stipulated agreements she could never keep and ultimately eviction to make way for richer, whiter, gentrified tenants which make this building more desirable in the privatization pool.
“Plaza East is not part of RAD,” one of the managers who presided smugly over Sabrina’s eviction said at a tenants meeting that the POOR Magazine family was invited to a week prior. After his assertion that their apartments were not part of the filthy RAD pool where everyone from non-profit organizations to for-profit corporations like Goldman Sachs were making bank, he went on to contradict himself in one paragraph.
“Well, actually the San Francisco Housing Authority subsidies are now going to come from RAD and we are going to start moving people out who are not fully inhabiting their apartments,” he concluded, thoroughly confusing everyone in the meeting. He went on to cite the three projects that are slated for demolition, as if the demolition of thousands of people’s homes were nothing more than having a cup of coffee and a donut.
Standing on the street holding this mama and her son, dreams, memories, altars, mementos, toys and herstories of this family’s life were permanently lost in a series of hefty bags and clutched blankets. These moments can’t be described and yet I have tried for years. The tears they cause could fill an ocean and no matter how conscious, how revolutionary, and how much I know them far too intimately, I am still destroyed by them.
We stood there, POOR Magazine co-madres and reporters Queennandi, Jewnbug and me, along with Sabrina’s neighbors and extended family, holding onto her 13-year-old young warrior son and onto her, a lost and overwhelmed mama.
My mind raced with the moves of the last few weeks. The desperate legal saves comrade Leo Stegman and I did for the family at POOR Magazine’s Revolutionary Legal Advocacy Project. The media justice campaign and the countless stories written with POOR and PNN, the San Francisco Bay View and Manilatown Heritage Foundation.
The thousands of caring people who made phone calls to the sold-out mayor, Ed Lee, to try to get him to intervene in this illegal and unjust eviction but who never did because of course it was Lee who invited the private developers McCormack Baron, who bought this public housing, and their lying lawyers, Bornstein and Bornstein, into this town. Not coincidentally, these are the same lawyers who have been evicting Ellis Acted elders and families from their long-time homes by the thousands, while teaching landlords how to be better capitalists and “not care.”
We are still looking for a lawyer to challenge this case. The unjustness of this story has no words.
If you are a lawyer who can help file a state challenge to Sabrina’s case, please contact us. POOR Magazine will also be holding an organizing and info meeting in the Bayview branch of the SF Public Library in May entitled RAD = ERADICATION. Please stay tuned.
Sabrina, left, and her sons sing spirit at City Hall on March 11. Mayor Ed Lee, formerly a civil rights lawyer specializing in eviction defense, turned a deaf ear. – Photo: PNN
Poem for privatized, displaced mamas -
“Been fighting for 30 years and I keep losing. Why keep fighting when I’m never gonna win?” said one young privatized, gentrified mama in so much pain to me on the phone as I screamed out to touch her and love her no matter what …
“Noooooooooooooooooo,” I shouted to her and to all the mamaz, the elders, the gentrified and the stepped on.
To the mamaz who hold their heads up – even when there ain’t no more strength in their necks, whose eyes look forward filled with tears, whose hands hold so much, whose souls were never built to be killed over and over again.
These stolen lands weren’t created by the gentrifiers and all the haters, who make these laws and live on all this paper.
Dear Mama Sabrina, Mama Dee, Mama Mimi and all the mamaz who never did nothing but care for their children in racist Amerikkka, I’m raising Superbabymama from the ashes of 1999 dot com evictions. I’m calling upon Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer and Quetzalcoatl – I’m calling upon Mama Earth and Mama Creator.
The brutality of eviction and gentrification is so deep and wrong and filled with so much white-supremacist monetary lies and deep hatred. THIS is our Freedom Ride, family, and all of us mamaz and ancestor mamaz are needed.
Hold out your hearts in the wind. Call to your ancestor mamaz to hold these children and these women.
Beware this lie of civilization and corporate crafted institutional statehood. Hold out your hearts, mamas – cuz you know what I’m saying. Hold out your hearts, young mamaz, older mamaz, grandmothers and babies,
‘Cause the river of pain is too great to be sedated, and the women and children are about to go completely CRAZY.
The sounds will be loud and the vibe will be amazing –
‘Cause we all KNOW Superbabymama don’t play.
You know you’ve been evicted when your door is covered with plywood and nailed shut by a sheriff’s deputy. San Francisco might as well hang a “No Trespassing” sign over the whole city, as gentrification sweeps out poor folks at an unprecedented rate, with “progressive” leaders like Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi presiding over countless thousands of evictions. – Photos: PNN
Please help Sabrina and her sons find a good home and a champion to help her fight for justice. – Photo: PNN
Monday, April 14, 2014
"Strengthening the walls between public housing and affordable housing"
2014-04-14 by Lynda Carson (tenantsrule (@) yahoo.com):
San Francisco - In San Francisco and elsewhere, the new mantra being pushed by the Mayor's office and shills for the affordable housing industry is to claim that we need to breakdown the barriers between public housing and affordable housing. This is a sham meant to bamboozle the public out of it's public housing units locally, and elsewhere. This same type of privatization scheme is occurring all across the nation to privatize our public housing, and needs to be countered by any means necessary, whenever possible.
The current information available in regards to the situation at Berkeley's 75 former public housing units, reveals that public housing privatization schemes using tax credits to buy and rehabilitate the public housing units, results in the displacement of poor people from their homes and communities!
We need to strengthen the walls between public housing and affordable housing before all of our nation's public housing units are privatized and sold off to the so-called affordable housing industry.
What government officials and the shills of the affordable housing industry are not telling you, is that privatizing our nation's public housing units is bad for the tax payers. Privatization places the buildings at risk of foreclosure, displaces the poor from their long-time homes, further enriches the executives of the so-called affordable housing industry, cheats the public out of it's public housing units, and destroys good middle class union jobs in the process.
Simply put, the federal government needs to fully fund public housing projects all across the nation, and the government should purge the shills of the affordable housing industry out of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that are pushing for the privatization of our nation's public housing units.
Recently, San Francisco has embarked on a scheme to sell and privatize around 3,491 public housing units under the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. A number of nonprofit developers are involved in the privatization scheme including the Tabernacle Community Development Corporation, Mission Economic Development Agency, Bridge Housing, Mercy Housing California, John Stewart Company, Japanese American Religious Federation, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, Community Housing Partnership, Bethel A.M.E., San Francisco Housing Development Corporation, Ridgepoint Non-Profit Corporation, Community Housing Partnership, Glide Community Housing, Bernal Heights Housing Corporation, Bridge Housing Corporation, Chinatown Community Development Center, and the for profit housing developer Related California, owned by out-of-state billionaire's Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross.
It is still not a done deal, and HUD may not approve all, or part of the scheme to privatize the 3,491 public housing units under RAD. However, unless the public gets involved to protest, and stop the process of privatizing our public housing units, the affordable housing industry is in a position to grab and exploit tens of thousands of public housing units all across the nation. The affordable housing industry schemes to reap billions of dollars in profits for years ahead, once it gets it's hands on our public housing.
The scheme to use for profit developers, so-called nonprofit affordable housing developers, bank loans and tax credits to privatize and rehabilitate our public housing units results in poor people being replaced by higher income tenants, to make the new projects viable. Making matters worse, most so-called nonprofit housing developers use "minimum income requirements" at their projects, that discriminate against the poor.
As an example of how tax credits change the makeup of the low-income tenants at public housing developments that have been privatized, what is happening in Berkeley sheds light on what is really happening to public housing projects when they become privatized.
Profile of Berkeley's Public Housing Tenants In 2009 -
Berkeley's public housing tenants that resided in 75 town homes received a shocking notice dated October 27, 2009, announcing that the Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) planned to privatize and dispose of their long-time public housing units.
On February 11, 2014, the public housing tenants in Berkeley were sent a notice telling them that their public housing units have been sold and that transfer of ownership was to occur on February 14, 2014, to the new owners who happen to be some out-of-state billionaires named Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross, of the Related Companies.
The data available is not complete for all 75 public housing units in Berkeley during 2009, but from what data that is available for 57 units of public housing, the data reveals that 15 out of the 57 public housing units had households earning more than $35,000 annually.
Additionally, according to data about Berkeley's public housing units in 2009, there were 39 persons that received Social Security benefits, 36 persons that received SSI benefits, 23 persons that received TANF benefits, and 22 persons that received General Assistance benefits. From the data available, it appears that at least two-thirds to three quarters of the public housing households relied on one or multiple forms of public subsidy for daily living expenses, and that almost three-quarters of the households earned less than $30,000 annually. Additionally, 60% of the units had three or four members per household, with 85% of the residents that identified themselves as being "Black/African American." There were 11.2% of the tenants that identified themselves as being "White," and 2.2% identified themselves as "Asian." The 2009 HUD AMI for Oakland-Fremont, CA., was $89,300 for one person.
Presently, the average Social Security monthly benefit in California during 2014 is $1,294 per month. The average SSI (disability) benefit payment is $877.40 per month. The average TANF (CalWorks) family in California is an adult with two children that receives $510 a month in benefits. General Assistance in California during 2014 pays $336 per month to a single person. Food Stamps (CalFresh/SNAP) for one person is $189 per month, and persons receiving SSI/SSP are not allowed in the program.
Profile Of Berkeley's 75 Public Housing Units After Privatization in 2014 -
In regards to the 75 public housing units that were privatized as of February 14, 2014, the affordability breakdown for the new tenants in the privatized units will appear very different from what the tenant's income was as public housing tenants during 2009, according to the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CTCAC).
According to data released on September 25, 2013 from the CTCAC for the newly privatized 75 former public housing units in Berkeley using tax credits to rehabilitate the buildings, Related plans for an affordability breakdown of 8 units at or below 35% of AMI, 49 units at or below 50% of AMI, and 17 units at or below 60% of AMI, and one unit for a manager. Currently the 2014 HUD AMI for Alameda County is $88,500 for one person.
The current information available in regards to the situation at Berkeley's 75 former public housing units, reveals that public housing privatization schemes using tax credits to buy and rehabilitate the public housing units, results in the displacement of poor people from their homes and communities.
Strengthening the walls between public housing and affordable housing would help to stop the displacement of poor people from our nation's public housing projects.
Click on the link below for another story about the privatization of San Francisco's public housing units...
"SF public housing privatization threatens tenants and union workers", 2014-04-10 by Lynda Carson [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/04/10/18753915.php]
Comment: "Rental Assistance Demonstration Program", 2014-04-14 by Mr. Shillingsworth -
You should read up on the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program. The majority of your facts are incorrect. Current tenants are guaranteed two things: a newly renovated/constructed unit and the right to stay.
The so-called shills of the housing industry will be taking on unbelievably large financing risks (construction, operations, lease-up, etc.) in order for this program to work. The government is incapable of making a program like this work without the private sector's help.
At its current funding levels, it would take HUD 250 years to disperse the funds to match those available through the RAD program. It is true properties will become at risk of foreclosure if they are not managed properly. That said, these properties will be converted with project-based Section 8 contracts, which guarantees rents. The only reason a property would be foreclosed on is if they are wildly mismanaged, a risk which is mitigated by the new financial intermediaries - the lenders and investors.
The shills of the industry are responsible for producing the overwhelming majority of affordable housing in the United States. Far more than the government is capable of producing themselves.
I would think as a tenant advocate, you would be doing whatever you could to get involved and help this process work the best it can. It is, after all, about residents having quality housing. If that can't be achieved through the status quo, things need to change.
---
Response to comment by Lynda Carson:
I stand by story. Public housing needs to be fully funded, and we need to strengthen the walls between public housing and so-called affordable housing.
Privatizing public housing is bad for the public who lose their public housing units to private entities, the scheme displaces the poor from their long-time homes, and destroys good union jobs in the process.
Making matters worse, so-called nonprofit housing developers discriminate against the poor with "minimum income requirements," at their projects.
Click below for list of nonprofit housing developers in San Francisco that use minimum income requirements to discriminate against the poor... [http://www.selfhelpelderly.org/services/social_services/housing_list.pdf]
Presently, the average Social Security monthly benefit in California during 2014 is $1,294 per month. The average SSI (disability) benefit payment is $877.40 per month. The average TANF (CalWorks) family in California is an adult with two children that receives $510 a month in benefits. General Assistance in California during 2014 pays $336 per month to a single person. Food Stamps (CalFresh/SNAP) for one person is $189 per month, and persons receiving SSI/SSP are not allowed in the program.
Compare the list above with the "minimum income requirements" being imposed by so-called nonprofit developers to see who faces discrimination...
Once again, click below for list of nonprofit housing developers in San Francisco that use minimum income requirements to discriminate against the poor... [http://www.selfhelpelderly.org/services/social_services/housing_list.pdf]
>>>>>>>
Billionaires trying to get their hands on San Francisco public housing units -
Related California, owned by billionaires Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross, is one of the for profit housing developers trying to get their hands on San Francisco's public housing units.
Currently the billionaires of Related are trying to get their hands on some of San Francisco's public housing units including the Robert B. Pitts, 203 public housing units, Westside Courts, 136 public housing units, Hunter's Point East, 80 public housing units, and Hunter's Point West, 133 public housing units.
"Manhattan U.S. Attorney Files Civil Rights Lawsuit Against the Related Companies"
[http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/March14/RelatedFHALawsuit.php]
(PRESS RELEASE from MARCH 17, 2014 -- Related Companies sued by Manhattan US Attorney for being engaged in a pattern and practice of developing rental apartments that are inaccessible to persons with disabilities.)
San Francisco - In San Francisco and elsewhere, the new mantra being pushed by the Mayor's office and shills for the affordable housing industry is to claim that we need to breakdown the barriers between public housing and affordable housing. This is a sham meant to bamboozle the public out of it's public housing units locally, and elsewhere. This same type of privatization scheme is occurring all across the nation to privatize our public housing, and needs to be countered by any means necessary, whenever possible.
The current information available in regards to the situation at Berkeley's 75 former public housing units, reveals that public housing privatization schemes using tax credits to buy and rehabilitate the public housing units, results in the displacement of poor people from their homes and communities!
We need to strengthen the walls between public housing and affordable housing before all of our nation's public housing units are privatized and sold off to the so-called affordable housing industry.
What government officials and the shills of the affordable housing industry are not telling you, is that privatizing our nation's public housing units is bad for the tax payers. Privatization places the buildings at risk of foreclosure, displaces the poor from their long-time homes, further enriches the executives of the so-called affordable housing industry, cheats the public out of it's public housing units, and destroys good middle class union jobs in the process.
Simply put, the federal government needs to fully fund public housing projects all across the nation, and the government should purge the shills of the affordable housing industry out of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that are pushing for the privatization of our nation's public housing units.
Recently, San Francisco has embarked on a scheme to sell and privatize around 3,491 public housing units under the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. A number of nonprofit developers are involved in the privatization scheme including the Tabernacle Community Development Corporation, Mission Economic Development Agency, Bridge Housing, Mercy Housing California, John Stewart Company, Japanese American Religious Federation, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, Community Housing Partnership, Bethel A.M.E., San Francisco Housing Development Corporation, Ridgepoint Non-Profit Corporation, Community Housing Partnership, Glide Community Housing, Bernal Heights Housing Corporation, Bridge Housing Corporation, Chinatown Community Development Center, and the for profit housing developer Related California, owned by out-of-state billionaire's Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross.
It is still not a done deal, and HUD may not approve all, or part of the scheme to privatize the 3,491 public housing units under RAD. However, unless the public gets involved to protest, and stop the process of privatizing our public housing units, the affordable housing industry is in a position to grab and exploit tens of thousands of public housing units all across the nation. The affordable housing industry schemes to reap billions of dollars in profits for years ahead, once it gets it's hands on our public housing.
The scheme to use for profit developers, so-called nonprofit affordable housing developers, bank loans and tax credits to privatize and rehabilitate our public housing units results in poor people being replaced by higher income tenants, to make the new projects viable. Making matters worse, most so-called nonprofit housing developers use "minimum income requirements" at their projects, that discriminate against the poor.
As an example of how tax credits change the makeup of the low-income tenants at public housing developments that have been privatized, what is happening in Berkeley sheds light on what is really happening to public housing projects when they become privatized.
Profile of Berkeley's Public Housing Tenants In 2009 -
Berkeley's public housing tenants that resided in 75 town homes received a shocking notice dated October 27, 2009, announcing that the Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) planned to privatize and dispose of their long-time public housing units.
On February 11, 2014, the public housing tenants in Berkeley were sent a notice telling them that their public housing units have been sold and that transfer of ownership was to occur on February 14, 2014, to the new owners who happen to be some out-of-state billionaires named Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross, of the Related Companies.
The data available is not complete for all 75 public housing units in Berkeley during 2009, but from what data that is available for 57 units of public housing, the data reveals that 15 out of the 57 public housing units had households earning more than $35,000 annually.
Additionally, according to data about Berkeley's public housing units in 2009, there were 39 persons that received Social Security benefits, 36 persons that received SSI benefits, 23 persons that received TANF benefits, and 22 persons that received General Assistance benefits. From the data available, it appears that at least two-thirds to three quarters of the public housing households relied on one or multiple forms of public subsidy for daily living expenses, and that almost three-quarters of the households earned less than $30,000 annually. Additionally, 60% of the units had three or four members per household, with 85% of the residents that identified themselves as being "Black/African American." There were 11.2% of the tenants that identified themselves as being "White," and 2.2% identified themselves as "Asian." The 2009 HUD AMI for Oakland-Fremont, CA., was $89,300 for one person.
Presently, the average Social Security monthly benefit in California during 2014 is $1,294 per month. The average SSI (disability) benefit payment is $877.40 per month. The average TANF (CalWorks) family in California is an adult with two children that receives $510 a month in benefits. General Assistance in California during 2014 pays $336 per month to a single person. Food Stamps (CalFresh/SNAP) for one person is $189 per month, and persons receiving SSI/SSP are not allowed in the program.
Profile Of Berkeley's 75 Public Housing Units After Privatization in 2014 -
In regards to the 75 public housing units that were privatized as of February 14, 2014, the affordability breakdown for the new tenants in the privatized units will appear very different from what the tenant's income was as public housing tenants during 2009, according to the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CTCAC).
According to data released on September 25, 2013 from the CTCAC for the newly privatized 75 former public housing units in Berkeley using tax credits to rehabilitate the buildings, Related plans for an affordability breakdown of 8 units at or below 35% of AMI, 49 units at or below 50% of AMI, and 17 units at or below 60% of AMI, and one unit for a manager. Currently the 2014 HUD AMI for Alameda County is $88,500 for one person.
The current information available in regards to the situation at Berkeley's 75 former public housing units, reveals that public housing privatization schemes using tax credits to buy and rehabilitate the public housing units, results in the displacement of poor people from their homes and communities.
Strengthening the walls between public housing and affordable housing would help to stop the displacement of poor people from our nation's public housing projects.
Click on the link below for another story about the privatization of San Francisco's public housing units...
"SF public housing privatization threatens tenants and union workers", 2014-04-10 by Lynda Carson [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/04/10/18753915.php]
Comment: "Rental Assistance Demonstration Program", 2014-04-14 by Mr. Shillingsworth -
You should read up on the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program. The majority of your facts are incorrect. Current tenants are guaranteed two things: a newly renovated/constructed unit and the right to stay.
The so-called shills of the housing industry will be taking on unbelievably large financing risks (construction, operations, lease-up, etc.) in order for this program to work. The government is incapable of making a program like this work without the private sector's help.
At its current funding levels, it would take HUD 250 years to disperse the funds to match those available through the RAD program. It is true properties will become at risk of foreclosure if they are not managed properly. That said, these properties will be converted with project-based Section 8 contracts, which guarantees rents. The only reason a property would be foreclosed on is if they are wildly mismanaged, a risk which is mitigated by the new financial intermediaries - the lenders and investors.
The shills of the industry are responsible for producing the overwhelming majority of affordable housing in the United States. Far more than the government is capable of producing themselves.
I would think as a tenant advocate, you would be doing whatever you could to get involved and help this process work the best it can. It is, after all, about residents having quality housing. If that can't be achieved through the status quo, things need to change.
---
Response to comment by Lynda Carson:
I stand by story. Public housing needs to be fully funded, and we need to strengthen the walls between public housing and so-called affordable housing.
Privatizing public housing is bad for the public who lose their public housing units to private entities, the scheme displaces the poor from their long-time homes, and destroys good union jobs in the process.
Making matters worse, so-called nonprofit housing developers discriminate against the poor with "minimum income requirements," at their projects.
Click below for list of nonprofit housing developers in San Francisco that use minimum income requirements to discriminate against the poor... [http://www.selfhelpelderly.org/services/social_services/housing_list.pdf]
Presently, the average Social Security monthly benefit in California during 2014 is $1,294 per month. The average SSI (disability) benefit payment is $877.40 per month. The average TANF (CalWorks) family in California is an adult with two children that receives $510 a month in benefits. General Assistance in California during 2014 pays $336 per month to a single person. Food Stamps (CalFresh/SNAP) for one person is $189 per month, and persons receiving SSI/SSP are not allowed in the program.
Compare the list above with the "minimum income requirements" being imposed by so-called nonprofit developers to see who faces discrimination...
Once again, click below for list of nonprofit housing developers in San Francisco that use minimum income requirements to discriminate against the poor... [http://www.selfhelpelderly.org/services/social_services/housing_list.pdf]
>>>>>>>
Billionaires trying to get their hands on San Francisco public housing units -
Related California, owned by billionaires Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross, is one of the for profit housing developers trying to get their hands on San Francisco's public housing units.
Currently the billionaires of Related are trying to get their hands on some of San Francisco's public housing units including the Robert B. Pitts, 203 public housing units, Westside Courts, 136 public housing units, Hunter's Point East, 80 public housing units, and Hunter's Point West, 133 public housing units.
"Manhattan U.S. Attorney Files Civil Rights Lawsuit Against the Related Companies"
[http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/March14/RelatedFHALawsuit.php]
(PRESS RELEASE from MARCH 17, 2014 -- Related Companies sued by Manhattan US Attorney for being engaged in a pattern and practice of developing rental apartments that are inaccessible to persons with disabilities.)
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Oakland public housing residents facing inhumane rent increases
"Public housing tenants to pay higher rents"
2014-04-08 by Lynda Carson [tenantsrule (@) yahoo.com], posted to [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/04/08/18753792.php]:
Oakland - With around 50 million people living below the federal poverty line including 47 million people receiving food stamps, the attack on the poor by the Democrats, Republicans and the Obama Administration has heated up again by forcing public housing tenants across the nation to pay higher rents effective June 1, 2014.
Many public housing tenants are now facing major rent increases according to Section 210 of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Appropriations Act of 2014. The FY 2014 omnibus appropriations bill (H.R. 3547) affecting public housing tenants was passed by a Senate vote of 72 to 26 on January 16, 2014, and shortly after was signed into law by President Obama.
The Oakland Housing Authority currently has 2,121 public housing units and based on the latest census report, Oakland has the highest poverty rate for children in the Bay Area with more than 27 percent of them residing in households earning less than $23,000 annually.
The bill H.R. 3547 requires a significant change to the way public housing tenants are being charged rents, and requires Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) to establish flat rents at no less than 80 percent of the fair market rent (FMR), effective June 1, 2014. This is a huge change from the old policy of setting flat rents at no less than 60% of FMR, and will hurt many public housing tenants locally, and across the nation. The higher rents are intended to affect higher income public housing tenants at 60 to 80 percent of median family income, and residents will have the choice of paying an income-adjusted rent, or paying a flat rent.
The latest attack on poor public housing tenants are in addition to the recent nearly $9 billion in cuts to the food stamp program that are to occur over the next decade, including massive across-the-board sequestration budget cuts that have occurred, and other on-going attacks on our nations poverty programs being orchestrated by Republicans and Democrats alike.
As an example of how the higher rents will affect some public housing tenants, it was reported that Columbia public housing tenants living at the Bear Creek project in Missouri, will see their rents more than double. Additionally, tenants at the Stewart Parker site will have their rents incrementally increased from $345 per month to $809 per month, over the next three years.
Other major changes in effect may also affect Section 8 housing choice voucher holders. Under HUD's old guidelines, Section 8 tenants that used to be considered as extremely low-income (ELI) tenants had an income of 30% of the area median income (AMI), or less.
Under HUD's new guidelines set during January of 2014 as a result of H.R. 3547, extremely low-income tenants are now being defined as persons with an income higher than 30% of the AMI, or the federal poverty line, adjusted for family size. The new change in definition may eventually mean that Section 8 voucher holders may also face higher rents in the future, along with their comrades in public housing. However, the rent increase to public housing tenants are not supposed to affect Section 8 tenants presently.
Strange as it may appear, now that extremely low-income persons are being defined by HUD as people with an income higher than 30% of AMI, or the federal poverty line, HUD has declined to give a new name to the millions of poor people living in poverty with an income of 30% of AMI, or less all across the country.
To help put the situation of people living in poverty into perspective. According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics, April 4, 2014 report, 10.5 million people are unemployed, and for many of those who are working at minimum wage, the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since July of 2009.
Additionally, the federal poverty line for an extremely low-income person was listed in 2009 as one person earning $10,830 annually, or less. The new poverty line for 2014 is listed as one person earning $11,670 annually or less, even though the minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009.
Other Local Public Housing Tenants Facing Rent Increases -
The Alameda County Housing Authority has 72 public housing units. The San Francisco Housing Authority has 6,592 public housing units. The Richmond Housing Authority has 715 public housing units. The Housing Authority of Contra Costa County has 1,177 public housing units. The Housing Authority of Marin County has 496 public housing units. The City of Livermore Housing Authority has 125 public housing units. The Santa Cruz County Housing Authority has 234 public housing units.
2014-04-08 by Lynda Carson [tenantsrule (@) yahoo.com], posted to [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/04/08/18753792.php]:
Oakland - With around 50 million people living below the federal poverty line including 47 million people receiving food stamps, the attack on the poor by the Democrats, Republicans and the Obama Administration has heated up again by forcing public housing tenants across the nation to pay higher rents effective June 1, 2014.
Many public housing tenants are now facing major rent increases according to Section 210 of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Appropriations Act of 2014. The FY 2014 omnibus appropriations bill (H.R. 3547) affecting public housing tenants was passed by a Senate vote of 72 to 26 on January 16, 2014, and shortly after was signed into law by President Obama.
The Oakland Housing Authority currently has 2,121 public housing units and based on the latest census report, Oakland has the highest poverty rate for children in the Bay Area with more than 27 percent of them residing in households earning less than $23,000 annually.
The bill H.R. 3547 requires a significant change to the way public housing tenants are being charged rents, and requires Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) to establish flat rents at no less than 80 percent of the fair market rent (FMR), effective June 1, 2014. This is a huge change from the old policy of setting flat rents at no less than 60% of FMR, and will hurt many public housing tenants locally, and across the nation. The higher rents are intended to affect higher income public housing tenants at 60 to 80 percent of median family income, and residents will have the choice of paying an income-adjusted rent, or paying a flat rent.
The latest attack on poor public housing tenants are in addition to the recent nearly $9 billion in cuts to the food stamp program that are to occur over the next decade, including massive across-the-board sequestration budget cuts that have occurred, and other on-going attacks on our nations poverty programs being orchestrated by Republicans and Democrats alike.
As an example of how the higher rents will affect some public housing tenants, it was reported that Columbia public housing tenants living at the Bear Creek project in Missouri, will see their rents more than double. Additionally, tenants at the Stewart Parker site will have their rents incrementally increased from $345 per month to $809 per month, over the next three years.
Other major changes in effect may also affect Section 8 housing choice voucher holders. Under HUD's old guidelines, Section 8 tenants that used to be considered as extremely low-income (ELI) tenants had an income of 30% of the area median income (AMI), or less.
Under HUD's new guidelines set during January of 2014 as a result of H.R. 3547, extremely low-income tenants are now being defined as persons with an income higher than 30% of the AMI, or the federal poverty line, adjusted for family size. The new change in definition may eventually mean that Section 8 voucher holders may also face higher rents in the future, along with their comrades in public housing. However, the rent increase to public housing tenants are not supposed to affect Section 8 tenants presently.
Strange as it may appear, now that extremely low-income persons are being defined by HUD as people with an income higher than 30% of AMI, or the federal poverty line, HUD has declined to give a new name to the millions of poor people living in poverty with an income of 30% of AMI, or less all across the country.
To help put the situation of people living in poverty into perspective. According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics, April 4, 2014 report, 10.5 million people are unemployed, and for many of those who are working at minimum wage, the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since July of 2009.
Additionally, the federal poverty line for an extremely low-income person was listed in 2009 as one person earning $10,830 annually, or less. The new poverty line for 2014 is listed as one person earning $11,670 annually or less, even though the minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009.
Other Local Public Housing Tenants Facing Rent Increases -
The Alameda County Housing Authority has 72 public housing units. The San Francisco Housing Authority has 6,592 public housing units. The Richmond Housing Authority has 715 public housing units. The Housing Authority of Contra Costa County has 1,177 public housing units. The Housing Authority of Marin County has 496 public housing units. The City of Livermore Housing Authority has 125 public housing units. The Santa Cruz County Housing Authority has 234 public housing units.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Well's Fargo manual shows common use of forging foreclosure documents
Also see:
* Well's Fargo attacks Indybay.org newswire for publishing bank manual describing systematic forgery of foreclosure documents [link].
* Wells-Fargo Foreclosure Manual (Pub. 2011-11-09, current 2012) [link]
"Wells Fargo instructions for fabricating foreclosure documents" 2014-03-22 by IndyRadio [http://www.indyradio.nu/content/wells-fargo-instructions-fabricating-foreclosure-documents]:
Wells Fargo manual for fabricating foreclosure documents was distributed to Wells lawyer one week after settlement with DOJ. 150 page leaked document attached. download PDF (2.5MB) [https://www.indybay.org/uploads/2014/03/22/wells-fargo-foreclosure-manual.pdf].
One week after the non-prosecution settlement with the DOJ, Well Fargo published a 150 page manual to aid employees in fabricating foreclosures. The document was made available by the Washington Post, and discussed on Democracy Now! Friday [http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/21/as_wells_fargo_is_accused_of]:
[begin excerpt]
LINDA TIRELLI: Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe this manual, how you got it and what it reveals?
LINDA TIRELLI: Absolutely. The manual that I have, it’s actually entitled the "Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Foreclosure Attorney [Procedure] Manual, Version 1." And it says on it that it’s last published 2/24/2012. Mind you, the national mortgage settlement agreement was announced a week prior, on 2/19/2012.
The way I obtained it, it was actually sitting right there on the Internet, of all things. A colleague of mine, through a Max Gardner’s Bankruptcy Boot Camp, which I am a member, an active member, gave it to me and said, "Hey, I found this online, and I know you’re doing a lot of Wells Fargo cases. Maybe you can use this."
Reading it, my jaw just dropped. As I see it, it’s clearly outlining procedures, not just for the $12-an-hour robo-signers that we've heard about all these years, but for the lawyers, who need to be held accountable to a much higher degree. It’s the manual for the lawyers to actually fabricate documents, as I see it, and request that documents that are lacking be fabricated by Wells Fargo.
[end excerpt]
---
2014-06-29 posted by Indyradio to [https://facebook.com/IndyRadio]:
Having gained impunity for the money laundering of their new investment division, Wachovia, Wells Fargo entered in to the national foreclosure settlement agreement. One week later an internal memo bragged about an automated process for (a new round of) foreclosures, even when the original contracts have been lost. the manual for creating false foreclosure documents was still being printed one week after they signed the settlement. [http://www.scribd.com/doc/213340455/3-Wells-Fargo-Home-Mortgage-WFHM-Foreclosure-Attorney-Procedure-Manual-Version-1-Basis-of-Terelli-s-Franklin-Litigation-Controversy].
The same DOJ that provided guns to Mexican cartels gave a pass to Wells Fargo in 2010, after Wells bought their money launderer, Wachovia. The Guardian explains the unique arrangement, but at the time we didn't know about "Fast and Furious" [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs].
We know the Washington Post has the Wells Fargo manual for creating fake foreclosures, but Wells Fargo has recently hired some hacks to go after Indymedia for sharing it [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/06/28/18758001.php].
"How to Fabricate Evidence: Wells Fargo’s Foreclosure Manual Confirms the Worst"
2014-03-15 from "The Florida Foreclosure Fraud Weblog" [floridaforeclosurefraud.com/2014/03/how-to-fabricate-evidence-wells-fargos-foreclosure-manual-confirms-the-worst/]:
If there was any doubt in your mind that banks have been forging evidence [http://floridaforeclosurefraud.com/category/fake-documents/], put it to rest. According to the New York Post [http://nypost.com/2014/03/12/wells-fargo-made-up-on-demand-foreclosure-papers-plan-court-filing-charges/], an internal Wells Fargo manual has now leaked confirming the exact procedures Wells and its attorneys use to fabricate evidence in foreclosure cases—down to the computer codes they use to order production of falsified documents.
The manual itself is now spreading like wildfire, and I’ve got a copy of it here. [PDF] [http://floridaforeclosurefraud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Wells_Fargo_Attorney_foreclosure_attorney_procedure_manual_20120224.pdf]
The 150-plus-page document describes how Wells Fargo expects its attorneys to prepare and handle files in foreclosure cases. When Wells begins a foreclosure case, page 14 tells us what is supposed to happen:
"Documents include the original note, recorded mortgage, title policy, and recorded and unrecorded assignments. Documents are sent to imaging so that at the time of referral they can be uploaded via VendorScape or Desktop to the Foreclosure Attorney."
In other words, the attorney should have a complete copy of the original note, as it exists at the time the foreclosure begins, before filing the foreclosure lawsuit. But not all cases go so smoothly. Sometimes the original note is missing. Sometimes the original note lacks an endorsement—the signature or stamp, like the signature on the back of a check, that transfers the note from one party to another. Sometimes the lawyers need to create an “allonge” to add a missing endorsement. Wells Fargo has a policy and procedure for each of these cases, and that’s where the trouble starts.
Robo-Signing Lost Note Affidavits -
The real meat begins on page 15. What happens if the original note never makes it to the attorney? They communicate that fact back to Wells Fargo through the “VendorScape” or “Desktop” system—basically, a fancy kind of instant-message and tracking system between the lawyers and their supposed clients:
"Attorney: If after the third business day of the referral date you have not received the note, add log code NOTRRP in VendorScape or add the Note Not Received in Referral Package Issue in Desktop. This can be done by selecting Issues from the Tool Menu and selecting Add Issue."
Wells Fargo’s document team then swings into action:
"WFHM Default Docs Team: Research missing note:
• If note is found: complete the K64 step with the actual date the note was provided/sent to the Attorney. If the state does not require the original note, the document will be uploaded to LIV. Otherwise, send the note via mail and track for delivery.
• If note is not found: complete the K64 step, delete the N82 step, and add step N83, LOST NOTE AFFIDAVIT NEEDED. Only the Default Doc Team should be adding the N83 step to FOR3."
Wait: shouldn’t they know if they have the original note before they begin foreclosure proceedings? (Hush friend, that’s just a technicality.)
But again, there’s more paperwork to be done. The attorney prepares a form affidavit, and then send it to Wells Fargo for signature. And then someone at Wells Fargo just signs the affidavit:
"Attorney: Once the N83 step is placed on the loan, this will authorize your office to create and forward a lost note affidavit as described in the Lost Note Affidavits (LNA) process in this manual.
WFHM Default Docs Team: Once you receive, execute, and return the LNA to the Attorney, close the N83 step."
By the way, did you catch what doesn’t happen in this loop? At After the attorney prepares the cookie-cutter affidavit using this form, Wells Fargo just signs it without making any investigation into whether the affidavit correctly states the facts of how the note was supposedly lost or what search for the note was done. In other words, more robo-signing. Haven’t we been here before?
Manufactured Endorsements -
So what happens when the attorney gets the original note, but it doesn’t have an endorsement on it, the mark that legally transfers the note to the foreclosing bank? That’s when, on page 17, things really get dicey:
"Note Endorsement **Please Note** This process is only to be used if your office has already received the note. If you have not received the note, follow process for requesting the note listed in the Missing Note Process section of this manual."
That last part is important—this process can only be used when the attorneys already have the original in their custody. Remember that.
"Attorney: Enter step Z02 (Endorsed Note Needed) to the FOR3 screen (if a loan is in foreclosure) or the BNK3 screen (if a loan is in Bankruptcy).
WFHM Default Docs Team: Research needed endorsement.
If the blank endorsement is in the file for an original state [a state that requires filing the original note in a foreclosure proceeding, like Florida], execute the endorsement, send the original document to the attorney, and complete the Z02 step."
So once the attorney has the original note, if it’s missing an endorsement, Wells Fargo employees “execute the endorsement” and then send it to the attorney—who already has the original note. This means that they aren’t applying the endorsement to the note itself, but to a separate document which the attorney must apparently attach to the note later. This is legally insufficient to transfer the note, and creates a huge legal problem for every Wells Fargo foreclosure in Florida and other “original document” states. (For more on why this is a problem, the ambitious reader may want to take a look at Adams v. Madison Realty & Development, Inc., 853 F.2d 163, 164 (3d Cir.1988) [http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15952441306028509721&hl=en&as_sdt=40006].)
Fortunately for borrowers, Wells Fargo will completely track this sequence of events in Desktop, on the FOR2 and FOR3 screens. A skilled attorney can obtain and decipher these documents, by paying particular attention for Z02 codes.
Fabricating Allonges -
Wells Fargo fabricates allonges in very nearly the same way. (What is an allonge? The Adams case explains, but so do Florida cases Booker [link], Isaac [link], and Bohatka [http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5199606611838758210]: “An allonge is “a piece of paper annexed to a negotiable instrument or promissory note, on which to write endorsements for which there is no room on the instrument itself. Such must be so firmly affixed thereto as to become a part thereof.” Some people joke that “allonge” is simply a French word meaning “fraud.”)
Because the allonge is the piece of paper the endorsement is applied to, it has to be attached to the note at the time the endorsement is made. (Again, see Adams.) If not, it fails to transfer the note. So what happens in Wells Fargo’s world?
"Attorney: If an allonge is still needed after a note has been endorsed, forward the allonge attachment to Wells Fargo Default Docs area via email address Defaultallongemailbox@wellsfargo.com and add step Y44, ATTORNEY REQUESTED ALLONGE, to FOR3."
So what happens if the attorney needs an allonge but still has the original note? No problem! (Actually, big problem.) Wells just executes the allonge and then sends it back to the attorney who then attaches it to the note later.
"WFHM Default Docs Team: If property is located in an original doc state and attorney has the original note, review the allonge attachment to determine if we have signing authority to execute internally.
• If WFHM does have signing authority, enter log code FCALGI (ALLONGE SENT FOR INTERNAL SIGNATURE)
• If WFHM does not have signing authority, enter log code FCALGE (ALLONGE SENT OUT FOR EXECUTION) and mail document for 3rd party signature.
• After allonge has been executed, enter log code FCALGA (ALLONGE COMPLETED/RETURNED TO ATTORNEY).
• Complete the Y44 actual date with the date allonge was returned to attorney."
This, simply put, means it is the policy and practice of Wells Fargo to manufacture evidence of standing. The good news for borrowers: a skilled attorney can review the FOR2 and FOR3 screens, and look at the dates of the N82 (NOTE SENT TO ATTY) and the Y44 (ALLONGE COMPLETED/RETURNED TO ATTORNEY) codes. That will tell the whole story.
What To Do If Wells Fargo Sues You -
You can tell if you get sued by Wells Fargo. They will either be named as the plaintiff, or the complaint will be verified by a Wells Fargo employee. So if you get a lawsuit with Wells Fargo’s filthy fingerprints all over it, find someone who knows how to obtain and read Wells Fargo’s records—the very records that will expose the fraud. Give us a call at (888) 830-0830 or contact us online for an appointment.
"Allonge is a French word for fraud" posted 2014-03-10 by by Florida Foreclosure Lawyer Michael Wasylik to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb5Zy9wsvWM]:
Why the appearance of an "allonge" in your foreclosure is a red flag for fraud—Florida foreclosure defense lawyer Michael Alex Wasylik explains.
Have foreclosure questions? Call us at 352-567-3173 and don't forget to download our FREE 30-page Consumer Guide to Defending Florida Foreclosures: [http://ricardolaw.com/guide]
Notice in the following article, the Department of Justice says "Finding hard evidence has proved difficult". They are proven Liars.
2011-12-22 by Scot Paltrow, edited by Michael Williams and Chris Kaufman
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/22/us-usa-foreclosure-idUSTRE7BL0M020111222]
(Reuters) - Four years after the banking system nearly collapsed from reckless mortgage lending, federal prosecutors have stayed on the sidelines, even as judges around the country are pointing fingers at possible wrongdoing.
The federal government, as has been widely noted, has pressed few criminal cases against major lenders or senior executives for the events that led to the meltdown of 2007. Finding hard evidence has proved difficult, the Justice Department has said.
The government also hasn't brought any prosecutions for dubious foreclosure practices deployed since 2007 by big banks and other mortgage-servicing companies.
But this part of the financial system, a Reuters examination shows, is filled with potential leads:
Foreclosure-related case files in just one New York federal bankruptcy court, for example, hold at least a dozen mortgage documents known as promissory notes bearing evidence of recently forged signatures and illegal alterations, according to a judge's rulings and records reviewed by Reuters. Similarly altered notes have appeared in courts around the country.
Banks in the past two years have foreclosed on the houses of thousands of active-duty U.S. soldiers who are legally eligible to have foreclosures halted. Refusing to grant foreclosure stays is a misdemeanor under federal law.
The U.S. Treasury confirmed in November that it is conducting a civil investigation of 4,500 such foreclosures. Attorneys representing service members estimate banks have foreclosed on up to 30,000 military personnel in potential violation of the law.
In Alabama, a federal bankruptcy judge ruled last month that Wells Fargo & Co. had filed at least 630 sworn affidavits containing false "facts," including claims that homeowners were in arrears for amounts not yet due.
Wells Fargo "took the law into its own hands" and disregarded laws banning perjury, Judge Margaret A. Mahoney declared.
And in thousands of cases, documents required to transfer ownership of mortgages have been falsified. Lacking originals needed to foreclose, mortgage servicers drew up new ones, falsely signed by their own staff as employees of the original lenders - many of which no longer exist.
But the mortgage-foreclosure mess has yet to yield any federal prosecution against the big banks that are the major servicers of home loans.
UNPRECEDENTED FRAUD -
Reuters has identified one pending federal criminal investigation into suspected improper foreclosure procedures. That inquiry has been under way since 2009.
The investigation focuses on a defunct subsidiary of Jacksonville, Florida-based Lender Processing Services, the nation's largest subcontractor of mortgage servicing duties for banks.
People close to the investigation said indictments may come as early as the end of this month. Nationwide press reports had showed photos of what appeared to be obviously forged signatures on foreclosure affidavits.
The Justice Department doesn't disclose pending investigations, making it impossible to say if other criminal inquiries are underway. Officials in state attorneys' general offices and lawyers in foreclosure cases say they have seen no signs of any other federal criminal investigation.
"I think it's difficult to find a fraud of this size on the U.S. court system in U.S. history," said Raymond Brescia, a visiting professor at Yale Law School who has written articles analyzing the role of courts in the financial crisis. "I can't think of one where you have literally tens of thousands of fraudulent documents filed in tens of thousands of cases."
Spokesmen for the five largest servicers - Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., JP Morgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc., and Ally Financial Group - declined to comment about the possibility of widespread fraud for this article.
Paul Leonard, spokesman for the Housing Policy Council, whose membership includes those banks, said any faults in foreclosure cases are being addressed under a civil settlement earlier this year with federal regulators.
FALSE STATEMENTS -
Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials say they have brought mortgage-fraud criminal cases through their "Operation Stolen Dreams." None, however, were against big banks. All targeted small-scale operators who allegedly defrauded banks with forged mortgage applications or took advantage of homeowners by falsely promising arrangements to get them out of default and then pocketing their money.
Justice Department spokeswoman Adora Andy declined to comment on the absence of prosecutions for foreclosure practices by big banks. She said in a statement: "The Department of Justice has been and will continue to aggressively investigate financial fraud wherever it occurs, including at all levels of the mortgage industry and, when we find evidence of a crime, we will not hesitate to pursue it."
Some judges have accused banks of falsely stating in court that they are working on loan modifications for homeowners in default.
In a November 30 court hearing, not previously reported, a federal bankruptcy judge in New York accused Bank of America of falsely telling courts and the public that it was working to renegotiate loans.
"Bank of America issues constant press releases about how it is responsive to their borrowers on these issues. They are not, period," said Judge Robert Drain, in a case involving homeowner Richard Tomasulo, a pharmacist from Crompond, New York. Drain said Bank of America had been telling the court since January that it was working to modify Tomasulo's mortgage, but hadn't done so.
"Whoever is in charge of this program and their supervisor, who should be following it, should be fired" because "they are frankly incompetent."
Bank of America spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens said the bank has completed "nearly one million" modifications since 2008. The U.S. Treasury this year suspended loan modification incentive payments to the bank because it was "seriously deficient" in responding to requests for modifications.
CHEATERS AND LIARS -
Foreclosure fraud came to light in September 2010, with evidence that employees of Ally Financial Corp. had committed "robo-signing," in which low-level workers signed and swore to the facts in thousands of affidavits they hadn't read or checked.
The affidavits were notarized outside the signers' presence, in apparent violation of state and federal criminal laws.
Since then, mounting evidence of possible foreclosure fraud has convinced judges and state regulators that servicers have harmed homeowners and the investors who bought mortgage-backed securities.
A unit of the Justice Department that oversees bankruptcy court cases, the U.S. Trustees Program, said in its 2010 annual report that there were "pervasive and longstanding problems regarding mortgage loan servicing," which "are not merely 'technical' but cause real harm to homeowners in bankruptcy."
Banks, the Trustees Program says, have falsified affidavits by claiming homeowners owe fees for services never rendered and by overstating how much owners are behind on payments.
Former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman, a professor of criminal law at Columbia University Law School, says a central question is who prosecutors would target in criminal investigations. Richman said it would be easy but not worthwhile to charge large numbers of rank-and-file workers who, directed by supervisors, falsely churned out affidavits.
He said criminal investigations would be warranted, but harder to bring, "if there are particular individuals who lie at the heart of this conduct in a very significant way."
In October 2010, members of Congress pressed the Justice Department to investigate. Attorney General Eric Holder said investigations were best left to the states, with help from the Justice Department.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the top bank regulator, quickly negotiated settlements with the 14 largest servicers, requiring changes in practices and "remediation" for harmed homeowners. That settlement allows the banks to choose their own contractors to determine who was harmed and by how much.
Lawmakers and homeowner advocates have criticized the arrangement, contending that it will let the banks avoid making all wronged homeowners whole, because the contractors are paid by and answer to the banks.
Since then, the department's civil division has worked with a shaky coalition of all 50 states, which have been seeking a civil settlement with five banks that are the largest loan servicers. The negotiations center on requiring them to pay $20 billion or more in penalties, only some of which would go to compensate wronged homeowners.
STATES TAKE ACTION -
Federal law enforcement has been noticeably absent, even in areas hardest hit by the crisis, such as Las Vegas.
In 2010 the FBI's Las Vegas office shut down its mortgage fraud task force, which had focused on small-scale swindlers.
Tim Gallagher, chief of the FBI's financial crimes section, said that the Las Vegas office had asked to transfer agents to other duties.
Impatient with the lack of federal prosecution, states including New York, Massachusetts, Delaware and California have launched their own investigations of the banks.
In November, it became the first state to file criminal charges. The state attorney general obtained a 606-count indictment against two California-based executives of Lender Processing Services.
It accuses the executives of paying Nevada notaries to forge the pair's signatures and falsely notarize them on notices of default, documents Nevada requires in foreclosure actions. State officials said more indictments are expected.
In an interview, John Kelleher, Nevada's chief deputy attorney general, said the investigation began in response to citizen complaints.
"We were concerned and then shocked at the sheer number of fraudulent documents we were finding that had been filed with the county recorder," Kelleher said.
Investigators found "tens of thousands" of false records filed on behalf of big mortgage servicers, he said.
The two executives have pleaded not guilty. In a press release, the company said: "LPS acknowledges the signing procedures on some of these documents were flawed; however, the company also believes these documents were properly authorized and their recording did not result in a wrongful foreclosure."
BACK HOME IN NEW YORK -
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan is the federal prosecutors' office that traditionally has filed the most cases against top banks and financiers. But it hasn't brought any foreclosure-related criminal cases involving Wall Street's biggest financial houses or the law firms that represent them.
To date the only step it has taken publicly was an October 2011 civil settlement with New York State's largest foreclosure law firm.
The Steven J. Baum P.C. law firm, based near Buffalo, New York, in recent years filed approximately 40 per cent of all foreclosures in New York State, on behalf of banks and other mortgage servicers. Court records show that the firm angered state court judges for alleged false statements and filing suspect documents.
Arthur Schack, a state court judge in Brooklyn, in a 2010 ruling said that pleadings by the Baum firm on behalf of HSBC Bank, a unit of London-based HSBC Holdings, in a foreclosure case were "so incredible, outrageous, ludicrous and disingenuous that they should have been authorized by the late Rod Serling, creator of the famous science-fiction television series, The Twilight Zone."
Another state judge that year imposed $5,000 in sanctions and ordered the firm to pay $14,500 in attorneys' fees, ruling that "misrepresentation of the material statements here was outrageous."
But the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan filed no criminal charges against the Baum firm. Instead, it signed a settlement with Baum ending an inquiry "relating to foreclosure practices." The agreement made no allegations of wrongdoing, but required the firm to improve its foreclosure practices.
Baum agreed to pay a $2 million civil penalty, but didn't admit wrongdoing.
The law firm said it would shut down after New York Times columnist Joe Nocera in November published photographs of a 2010 Baum firm Halloween party in which employees dressed up as homeless people. Another showed part of Baum's office decorated to look like a row of foreclosed houses.
"The settlement between the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office and the Steven J. Baum Law Firm resulted in immediate and comprehensive reforms of the firm's business practices," said Ellen Davis, spokeswoman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office.
Earl Wells III, a spokesman for Baum, said the lawyer wouldn't comment because "he's laying low right now."
An HSBC spokesman said: "We are working closely with the regulators to address any matters raised regarding" the bank's foreclosure practices.
BROKEN PROMISES -
The most serious potential foreclosure violations involve falsified mortgage promissory notes, the documents homeowners sign vowing to repay mortgage loans. Courts uniformly have ruled that unless a creditor legally owns the promissory note, it has no legal right to foreclose. For each mortgage there is only one promissory note.
Bankruptcy court records reviewed by Reuters show that at least a dozen radically different documents purporting to be the authentic promissory note have turned up in foreclosure cases involving six different properties in the federal bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York.
In one, Wells Fargo is battling to foreclose on the Bronx home of Tindala Mims, a single mother who works as an ambulance driver. In September 2010, Wells Fargo filed a promissory note bearing a signed stamp showing that the note belonged to defunct Washington Mutual Bank, not Wells Fargo. The judge threw out the case.
In a second attempt, the court was given a different version of the note. But inspection showed physical alterations. A variety of marks on the original were missing or seemed obviously altered on the second. And the second version had a stamped endorsement, missing on the first, that appeared to give Wells Fargo the right to foreclose.
The judge threw out the second attempt too. Wells Fargo is trying a third time. It declined to comment on the case.
Linda Tirelli, Mims' lawyer, in October sued Wells Fargo, alleging "fabrication of documents."
"It seems to me that Washington is deathly afraid of the banking industry," Tirelli said. "If you're talking about filing false documents and filing false notarizations, do you really think that the U.S. Attorney would find it too difficult to prosecute?"
The office of Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan has routinely brought charges involving forgery and filing false documents against smaller targets.
In April, the FBI arrested seven employees of the USA Beauty School in Manhattan. Bharara's office alleged that the seven suspects had forged documents such as high school diplomas, attendance records and applications for financial aid for students taking cosmetology classes.
In August, Bharara's office filed felony charges against a sports-memorabilia company's CEO, accusing him of auctioning jerseys falsely advertised as "game used" by Major League Baseball players.
In a press conference, a U.S. Postal Inspection Service official said prosecution was important because "victims felt that they had a piece of history only to be defrauded and left with a feeling of heartbreak."
Given the record of Bharara's office, and those of his fellow U.S. Attorneys around the country, to aggressively pursue violations both big and small, the absence of cases involving the foreclosure fiasco seems to stand out.
"Why there hasn't been more robust prosecution is a mystery," said Brescia, the visiting professor at Yale.
* Well's Fargo attacks Indybay.org newswire for publishing bank manual describing systematic forgery of foreclosure documents [link].
* Wells-Fargo Foreclosure Manual (Pub. 2011-11-09, current 2012) [link]
"Wells Fargo instructions for fabricating foreclosure documents" 2014-03-22 by IndyRadio [http://www.indyradio.nu/content/wells-fargo-instructions-fabricating-foreclosure-documents]:
Wells Fargo manual for fabricating foreclosure documents was distributed to Wells lawyer one week after settlement with DOJ. 150 page leaked document attached. download PDF (2.5MB) [https://www.indybay.org/uploads/2014/03/22/wells-fargo-foreclosure-manual.pdf].
One week after the non-prosecution settlement with the DOJ, Well Fargo published a 150 page manual to aid employees in fabricating foreclosures. The document was made available by the Washington Post, and discussed on Democracy Now! Friday [http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/21/as_wells_fargo_is_accused_of]:
[begin excerpt]
LINDA TIRELLI: Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe this manual, how you got it and what it reveals?
LINDA TIRELLI: Absolutely. The manual that I have, it’s actually entitled the "Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Foreclosure Attorney [Procedure] Manual, Version 1." And it says on it that it’s last published 2/24/2012. Mind you, the national mortgage settlement agreement was announced a week prior, on 2/19/2012.
The way I obtained it, it was actually sitting right there on the Internet, of all things. A colleague of mine, through a Max Gardner’s Bankruptcy Boot Camp, which I am a member, an active member, gave it to me and said, "Hey, I found this online, and I know you’re doing a lot of Wells Fargo cases. Maybe you can use this."
Reading it, my jaw just dropped. As I see it, it’s clearly outlining procedures, not just for the $12-an-hour robo-signers that we've heard about all these years, but for the lawyers, who need to be held accountable to a much higher degree. It’s the manual for the lawyers to actually fabricate documents, as I see it, and request that documents that are lacking be fabricated by Wells Fargo.
[end excerpt]
---
2014-06-29 posted by Indyradio to [https://facebook.com/IndyRadio]:
Having gained impunity for the money laundering of their new investment division, Wachovia, Wells Fargo entered in to the national foreclosure settlement agreement. One week later an internal memo bragged about an automated process for (a new round of) foreclosures, even when the original contracts have been lost. the manual for creating false foreclosure documents was still being printed one week after they signed the settlement. [http://www.scribd.com/doc/213340455/3-Wells-Fargo-Home-Mortgage-WFHM-Foreclosure-Attorney-Procedure-Manual-Version-1-Basis-of-Terelli-s-Franklin-Litigation-Controversy].
The same DOJ that provided guns to Mexican cartels gave a pass to Wells Fargo in 2010, after Wells bought their money launderer, Wachovia. The Guardian explains the unique arrangement, but at the time we didn't know about "Fast and Furious" [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs].
We know the Washington Post has the Wells Fargo manual for creating fake foreclosures, but Wells Fargo has recently hired some hacks to go after Indymedia for sharing it [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/06/28/18758001.php].
"How to Fabricate Evidence: Wells Fargo’s Foreclosure Manual Confirms the Worst"
2014-03-15 from "The Florida Foreclosure Fraud Weblog" [floridaforeclosurefraud.com/2014/03/how-to-fabricate-evidence-wells-fargos-foreclosure-manual-confirms-the-worst/]:
If there was any doubt in your mind that banks have been forging evidence [http://floridaforeclosurefraud.com/category/fake-documents/], put it to rest. According to the New York Post [http://nypost.com/2014/03/12/wells-fargo-made-up-on-demand-foreclosure-papers-plan-court-filing-charges/], an internal Wells Fargo manual has now leaked confirming the exact procedures Wells and its attorneys use to fabricate evidence in foreclosure cases—down to the computer codes they use to order production of falsified documents.
The manual itself is now spreading like wildfire, and I’ve got a copy of it here. [PDF] [http://floridaforeclosurefraud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Wells_Fargo_Attorney_foreclosure_attorney_procedure_manual_20120224.pdf]
The 150-plus-page document describes how Wells Fargo expects its attorneys to prepare and handle files in foreclosure cases. When Wells begins a foreclosure case, page 14 tells us what is supposed to happen:
"Documents include the original note, recorded mortgage, title policy, and recorded and unrecorded assignments. Documents are sent to imaging so that at the time of referral they can be uploaded via VendorScape or Desktop to the Foreclosure Attorney."
In other words, the attorney should have a complete copy of the original note, as it exists at the time the foreclosure begins, before filing the foreclosure lawsuit. But not all cases go so smoothly. Sometimes the original note is missing. Sometimes the original note lacks an endorsement—the signature or stamp, like the signature on the back of a check, that transfers the note from one party to another. Sometimes the lawyers need to create an “allonge” to add a missing endorsement. Wells Fargo has a policy and procedure for each of these cases, and that’s where the trouble starts.
Robo-Signing Lost Note Affidavits -
The real meat begins on page 15. What happens if the original note never makes it to the attorney? They communicate that fact back to Wells Fargo through the “VendorScape” or “Desktop” system—basically, a fancy kind of instant-message and tracking system between the lawyers and their supposed clients:
"Attorney: If after the third business day of the referral date you have not received the note, add log code NOTRRP in VendorScape or add the Note Not Received in Referral Package Issue in Desktop. This can be done by selecting Issues from the Tool Menu and selecting Add Issue."
Wells Fargo’s document team then swings into action:
"WFHM Default Docs Team: Research missing note:
• If note is found: complete the K64 step with the actual date the note was provided/sent to the Attorney. If the state does not require the original note, the document will be uploaded to LIV. Otherwise, send the note via mail and track for delivery.
• If note is not found: complete the K64 step, delete the N82 step, and add step N83, LOST NOTE AFFIDAVIT NEEDED. Only the Default Doc Team should be adding the N83 step to FOR3."
Wait: shouldn’t they know if they have the original note before they begin foreclosure proceedings? (Hush friend, that’s just a technicality.)
But again, there’s more paperwork to be done. The attorney prepares a form affidavit, and then send it to Wells Fargo for signature. And then someone at Wells Fargo just signs the affidavit:
"Attorney: Once the N83 step is placed on the loan, this will authorize your office to create and forward a lost note affidavit as described in the Lost Note Affidavits (LNA) process in this manual.
WFHM Default Docs Team: Once you receive, execute, and return the LNA to the Attorney, close the N83 step."
By the way, did you catch what doesn’t happen in this loop? At After the attorney prepares the cookie-cutter affidavit using this form, Wells Fargo just signs it without making any investigation into whether the affidavit correctly states the facts of how the note was supposedly lost or what search for the note was done. In other words, more robo-signing. Haven’t we been here before?
Manufactured Endorsements -
So what happens when the attorney gets the original note, but it doesn’t have an endorsement on it, the mark that legally transfers the note to the foreclosing bank? That’s when, on page 17, things really get dicey:
"Note Endorsement **Please Note** This process is only to be used if your office has already received the note. If you have not received the note, follow process for requesting the note listed in the Missing Note Process section of this manual."
That last part is important—this process can only be used when the attorneys already have the original in their custody. Remember that.
"Attorney: Enter step Z02 (Endorsed Note Needed) to the FOR3 screen (if a loan is in foreclosure) or the BNK3 screen (if a loan is in Bankruptcy).
WFHM Default Docs Team: Research needed endorsement.
If the blank endorsement is in the file for an original state [a state that requires filing the original note in a foreclosure proceeding, like Florida], execute the endorsement, send the original document to the attorney, and complete the Z02 step."
So once the attorney has the original note, if it’s missing an endorsement, Wells Fargo employees “execute the endorsement” and then send it to the attorney—who already has the original note. This means that they aren’t applying the endorsement to the note itself, but to a separate document which the attorney must apparently attach to the note later. This is legally insufficient to transfer the note, and creates a huge legal problem for every Wells Fargo foreclosure in Florida and other “original document” states. (For more on why this is a problem, the ambitious reader may want to take a look at Adams v. Madison Realty & Development, Inc., 853 F.2d 163, 164 (3d Cir.1988) [http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15952441306028509721&hl=en&as_sdt=40006].)
Fortunately for borrowers, Wells Fargo will completely track this sequence of events in Desktop, on the FOR2 and FOR3 screens. A skilled attorney can obtain and decipher these documents, by paying particular attention for Z02 codes.
Fabricating Allonges -
Wells Fargo fabricates allonges in very nearly the same way. (What is an allonge? The Adams case explains, but so do Florida cases Booker [link], Isaac [link], and Bohatka [http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5199606611838758210]: “An allonge is “a piece of paper annexed to a negotiable instrument or promissory note, on which to write endorsements for which there is no room on the instrument itself. Such must be so firmly affixed thereto as to become a part thereof.” Some people joke that “allonge” is simply a French word meaning “fraud.”)
Because the allonge is the piece of paper the endorsement is applied to, it has to be attached to the note at the time the endorsement is made. (Again, see Adams.) If not, it fails to transfer the note. So what happens in Wells Fargo’s world?
"Attorney: If an allonge is still needed after a note has been endorsed, forward the allonge attachment to Wells Fargo Default Docs area via email address Defaultallongemailbox@wellsfargo.com and add step Y44, ATTORNEY REQUESTED ALLONGE, to FOR3."
So what happens if the attorney needs an allonge but still has the original note? No problem! (Actually, big problem.) Wells just executes the allonge and then sends it back to the attorney who then attaches it to the note later.
"WFHM Default Docs Team: If property is located in an original doc state and attorney has the original note, review the allonge attachment to determine if we have signing authority to execute internally.
• If WFHM does have signing authority, enter log code FCALGI (ALLONGE SENT FOR INTERNAL SIGNATURE)
• If WFHM does not have signing authority, enter log code FCALGE (ALLONGE SENT OUT FOR EXECUTION) and mail document for 3rd party signature.
• After allonge has been executed, enter log code FCALGA (ALLONGE COMPLETED/RETURNED TO ATTORNEY).
• Complete the Y44 actual date with the date allonge was returned to attorney."
This, simply put, means it is the policy and practice of Wells Fargo to manufacture evidence of standing. The good news for borrowers: a skilled attorney can review the FOR2 and FOR3 screens, and look at the dates of the N82 (NOTE SENT TO ATTY) and the Y44 (ALLONGE COMPLETED/RETURNED TO ATTORNEY) codes. That will tell the whole story.
What To Do If Wells Fargo Sues You -
You can tell if you get sued by Wells Fargo. They will either be named as the plaintiff, or the complaint will be verified by a Wells Fargo employee. So if you get a lawsuit with Wells Fargo’s filthy fingerprints all over it, find someone who knows how to obtain and read Wells Fargo’s records—the very records that will expose the fraud. Give us a call at (888) 830-0830 or contact us online for an appointment.
"Allonge is a French word for fraud" posted 2014-03-10 by by Florida Foreclosure Lawyer Michael Wasylik to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb5Zy9wsvWM]:
Why the appearance of an "allonge" in your foreclosure is a red flag for fraud—Florida foreclosure defense lawyer Michael Alex Wasylik explains.
Have foreclosure questions? Call us at 352-567-3173 and don't forget to download our FREE 30-page Consumer Guide to Defending Florida Foreclosures: [http://ricardolaw.com/guide]
Notice in the following article, the Department of Justice says "Finding hard evidence has proved difficult". They are proven Liars.
---
"Special report: The watchdogs that didn't bark"2011-12-22 by Scot Paltrow, edited by Michael Williams and Chris Kaufman
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/22/us-usa-foreclosure-idUSTRE7BL0M020111222]
(Reuters) - Four years after the banking system nearly collapsed from reckless mortgage lending, federal prosecutors have stayed on the sidelines, even as judges around the country are pointing fingers at possible wrongdoing.
The federal government, as has been widely noted, has pressed few criminal cases against major lenders or senior executives for the events that led to the meltdown of 2007. Finding hard evidence has proved difficult, the Justice Department has said.
The government also hasn't brought any prosecutions for dubious foreclosure practices deployed since 2007 by big banks and other mortgage-servicing companies.
But this part of the financial system, a Reuters examination shows, is filled with potential leads:
Foreclosure-related case files in just one New York federal bankruptcy court, for example, hold at least a dozen mortgage documents known as promissory notes bearing evidence of recently forged signatures and illegal alterations, according to a judge's rulings and records reviewed by Reuters. Similarly altered notes have appeared in courts around the country.
Banks in the past two years have foreclosed on the houses of thousands of active-duty U.S. soldiers who are legally eligible to have foreclosures halted. Refusing to grant foreclosure stays is a misdemeanor under federal law.
The U.S. Treasury confirmed in November that it is conducting a civil investigation of 4,500 such foreclosures. Attorneys representing service members estimate banks have foreclosed on up to 30,000 military personnel in potential violation of the law.
In Alabama, a federal bankruptcy judge ruled last month that Wells Fargo & Co. had filed at least 630 sworn affidavits containing false "facts," including claims that homeowners were in arrears for amounts not yet due.
Wells Fargo "took the law into its own hands" and disregarded laws banning perjury, Judge Margaret A. Mahoney declared.
And in thousands of cases, documents required to transfer ownership of mortgages have been falsified. Lacking originals needed to foreclose, mortgage servicers drew up new ones, falsely signed by their own staff as employees of the original lenders - many of which no longer exist.
But the mortgage-foreclosure mess has yet to yield any federal prosecution against the big banks that are the major servicers of home loans.
UNPRECEDENTED FRAUD -
Reuters has identified one pending federal criminal investigation into suspected improper foreclosure procedures. That inquiry has been under way since 2009.
The investigation focuses on a defunct subsidiary of Jacksonville, Florida-based Lender Processing Services, the nation's largest subcontractor of mortgage servicing duties for banks.
People close to the investigation said indictments may come as early as the end of this month. Nationwide press reports had showed photos of what appeared to be obviously forged signatures on foreclosure affidavits.
The Justice Department doesn't disclose pending investigations, making it impossible to say if other criminal inquiries are underway. Officials in state attorneys' general offices and lawyers in foreclosure cases say they have seen no signs of any other federal criminal investigation.
"I think it's difficult to find a fraud of this size on the U.S. court system in U.S. history," said Raymond Brescia, a visiting professor at Yale Law School who has written articles analyzing the role of courts in the financial crisis. "I can't think of one where you have literally tens of thousands of fraudulent documents filed in tens of thousands of cases."
Spokesmen for the five largest servicers - Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., JP Morgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc., and Ally Financial Group - declined to comment about the possibility of widespread fraud for this article.
Paul Leonard, spokesman for the Housing Policy Council, whose membership includes those banks, said any faults in foreclosure cases are being addressed under a civil settlement earlier this year with federal regulators.
FALSE STATEMENTS -
Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials say they have brought mortgage-fraud criminal cases through their "Operation Stolen Dreams." None, however, were against big banks. All targeted small-scale operators who allegedly defrauded banks with forged mortgage applications or took advantage of homeowners by falsely promising arrangements to get them out of default and then pocketing their money.
Justice Department spokeswoman Adora Andy declined to comment on the absence of prosecutions for foreclosure practices by big banks. She said in a statement: "The Department of Justice has been and will continue to aggressively investigate financial fraud wherever it occurs, including at all levels of the mortgage industry and, when we find evidence of a crime, we will not hesitate to pursue it."
Some judges have accused banks of falsely stating in court that they are working on loan modifications for homeowners in default.
In a November 30 court hearing, not previously reported, a federal bankruptcy judge in New York accused Bank of America of falsely telling courts and the public that it was working to renegotiate loans.
"Bank of America issues constant press releases about how it is responsive to their borrowers on these issues. They are not, period," said Judge Robert Drain, in a case involving homeowner Richard Tomasulo, a pharmacist from Crompond, New York. Drain said Bank of America had been telling the court since January that it was working to modify Tomasulo's mortgage, but hadn't done so.
"Whoever is in charge of this program and their supervisor, who should be following it, should be fired" because "they are frankly incompetent."
Bank of America spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens said the bank has completed "nearly one million" modifications since 2008. The U.S. Treasury this year suspended loan modification incentive payments to the bank because it was "seriously deficient" in responding to requests for modifications.
CHEATERS AND LIARS -
Foreclosure fraud came to light in September 2010, with evidence that employees of Ally Financial Corp. had committed "robo-signing," in which low-level workers signed and swore to the facts in thousands of affidavits they hadn't read or checked.
The affidavits were notarized outside the signers' presence, in apparent violation of state and federal criminal laws.
Since then, mounting evidence of possible foreclosure fraud has convinced judges and state regulators that servicers have harmed homeowners and the investors who bought mortgage-backed securities.
A unit of the Justice Department that oversees bankruptcy court cases, the U.S. Trustees Program, said in its 2010 annual report that there were "pervasive and longstanding problems regarding mortgage loan servicing," which "are not merely 'technical' but cause real harm to homeowners in bankruptcy."
Banks, the Trustees Program says, have falsified affidavits by claiming homeowners owe fees for services never rendered and by overstating how much owners are behind on payments.
Former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman, a professor of criminal law at Columbia University Law School, says a central question is who prosecutors would target in criminal investigations. Richman said it would be easy but not worthwhile to charge large numbers of rank-and-file workers who, directed by supervisors, falsely churned out affidavits.
He said criminal investigations would be warranted, but harder to bring, "if there are particular individuals who lie at the heart of this conduct in a very significant way."
In October 2010, members of Congress pressed the Justice Department to investigate. Attorney General Eric Holder said investigations were best left to the states, with help from the Justice Department.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the top bank regulator, quickly negotiated settlements with the 14 largest servicers, requiring changes in practices and "remediation" for harmed homeowners. That settlement allows the banks to choose their own contractors to determine who was harmed and by how much.
Lawmakers and homeowner advocates have criticized the arrangement, contending that it will let the banks avoid making all wronged homeowners whole, because the contractors are paid by and answer to the banks.
Since then, the department's civil division has worked with a shaky coalition of all 50 states, which have been seeking a civil settlement with five banks that are the largest loan servicers. The negotiations center on requiring them to pay $20 billion or more in penalties, only some of which would go to compensate wronged homeowners.
STATES TAKE ACTION -
Federal law enforcement has been noticeably absent, even in areas hardest hit by the crisis, such as Las Vegas.
In 2010 the FBI's Las Vegas office shut down its mortgage fraud task force, which had focused on small-scale swindlers.
Tim Gallagher, chief of the FBI's financial crimes section, said that the Las Vegas office had asked to transfer agents to other duties.
Impatient with the lack of federal prosecution, states including New York, Massachusetts, Delaware and California have launched their own investigations of the banks.
In November, it became the first state to file criminal charges. The state attorney general obtained a 606-count indictment against two California-based executives of Lender Processing Services.
It accuses the executives of paying Nevada notaries to forge the pair's signatures and falsely notarize them on notices of default, documents Nevada requires in foreclosure actions. State officials said more indictments are expected.
In an interview, John Kelleher, Nevada's chief deputy attorney general, said the investigation began in response to citizen complaints.
"We were concerned and then shocked at the sheer number of fraudulent documents we were finding that had been filed with the county recorder," Kelleher said.
Investigators found "tens of thousands" of false records filed on behalf of big mortgage servicers, he said.
The two executives have pleaded not guilty. In a press release, the company said: "LPS acknowledges the signing procedures on some of these documents were flawed; however, the company also believes these documents were properly authorized and their recording did not result in a wrongful foreclosure."
BACK HOME IN NEW YORK -
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan is the federal prosecutors' office that traditionally has filed the most cases against top banks and financiers. But it hasn't brought any foreclosure-related criminal cases involving Wall Street's biggest financial houses or the law firms that represent them.
To date the only step it has taken publicly was an October 2011 civil settlement with New York State's largest foreclosure law firm.
The Steven J. Baum P.C. law firm, based near Buffalo, New York, in recent years filed approximately 40 per cent of all foreclosures in New York State, on behalf of banks and other mortgage servicers. Court records show that the firm angered state court judges for alleged false statements and filing suspect documents.
Arthur Schack, a state court judge in Brooklyn, in a 2010 ruling said that pleadings by the Baum firm on behalf of HSBC Bank, a unit of London-based HSBC Holdings, in a foreclosure case were "so incredible, outrageous, ludicrous and disingenuous that they should have been authorized by the late Rod Serling, creator of the famous science-fiction television series, The Twilight Zone."
Another state judge that year imposed $5,000 in sanctions and ordered the firm to pay $14,500 in attorneys' fees, ruling that "misrepresentation of the material statements here was outrageous."
But the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan filed no criminal charges against the Baum firm. Instead, it signed a settlement with Baum ending an inquiry "relating to foreclosure practices." The agreement made no allegations of wrongdoing, but required the firm to improve its foreclosure practices.
Baum agreed to pay a $2 million civil penalty, but didn't admit wrongdoing.
The law firm said it would shut down after New York Times columnist Joe Nocera in November published photographs of a 2010 Baum firm Halloween party in which employees dressed up as homeless people. Another showed part of Baum's office decorated to look like a row of foreclosed houses.
"The settlement between the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office and the Steven J. Baum Law Firm resulted in immediate and comprehensive reforms of the firm's business practices," said Ellen Davis, spokeswoman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office.
Earl Wells III, a spokesman for Baum, said the lawyer wouldn't comment because "he's laying low right now."
An HSBC spokesman said: "We are working closely with the regulators to address any matters raised regarding" the bank's foreclosure practices.
BROKEN PROMISES -
The most serious potential foreclosure violations involve falsified mortgage promissory notes, the documents homeowners sign vowing to repay mortgage loans. Courts uniformly have ruled that unless a creditor legally owns the promissory note, it has no legal right to foreclose. For each mortgage there is only one promissory note.
Bankruptcy court records reviewed by Reuters show that at least a dozen radically different documents purporting to be the authentic promissory note have turned up in foreclosure cases involving six different properties in the federal bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York.
In one, Wells Fargo is battling to foreclose on the Bronx home of Tindala Mims, a single mother who works as an ambulance driver. In September 2010, Wells Fargo filed a promissory note bearing a signed stamp showing that the note belonged to defunct Washington Mutual Bank, not Wells Fargo. The judge threw out the case.
In a second attempt, the court was given a different version of the note. But inspection showed physical alterations. A variety of marks on the original were missing or seemed obviously altered on the second. And the second version had a stamped endorsement, missing on the first, that appeared to give Wells Fargo the right to foreclose.
The judge threw out the second attempt too. Wells Fargo is trying a third time. It declined to comment on the case.
Linda Tirelli, Mims' lawyer, in October sued Wells Fargo, alleging "fabrication of documents."
"It seems to me that Washington is deathly afraid of the banking industry," Tirelli said. "If you're talking about filing false documents and filing false notarizations, do you really think that the U.S. Attorney would find it too difficult to prosecute?"
The office of Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan has routinely brought charges involving forgery and filing false documents against smaller targets.
In April, the FBI arrested seven employees of the USA Beauty School in Manhattan. Bharara's office alleged that the seven suspects had forged documents such as high school diplomas, attendance records and applications for financial aid for students taking cosmetology classes.
In August, Bharara's office filed felony charges against a sports-memorabilia company's CEO, accusing him of auctioning jerseys falsely advertised as "game used" by Major League Baseball players.
In a press conference, a U.S. Postal Inspection Service official said prosecution was important because "victims felt that they had a piece of history only to be defrauded and left with a feeling of heartbreak."
Given the record of Bharara's office, and those of his fellow U.S. Attorneys around the country, to aggressively pursue violations both big and small, the absence of cases involving the foreclosure fiasco seems to stand out.
"Why there hasn't been more robust prosecution is a mystery," said Brescia, the visiting professor at Yale.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Berkeley public housing tenants speak out about billionaire takeover
An earlier version of this story is "Billionaires take control of Berkeley's public housing" [link], published 2014-03-15.
2014-03-18 by Lynda Carson [tenantsrule@yahoo.com], posted to [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/03/18/18752786.php]:
Berkeley - A March 13, 2014, memorandum from the Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) announced that the disposition project to privatize and dispose of Berkeley's 75 public housing town homes closed as recent as Friday, February 14, 2014. According to the BHA, a February 11, 2014, notice was sent out to all current public housing residents advising them of the transfer of ownership of their public housing housing units to a private entity.
Meanwhile, current and former Berkeley public housing tenants are speaking up and shedding a little bit of light on what has been happening at Berkeley's 75 public housing units once the decision was made to privatize and sell their public housing units to out-of-state billionaires Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross, of The Related Companies.
Contrary to the claim by the BHA that a notice was sent out on February 11, to notify Berkeley's public housing tenants that their homes have been sold to some out-of-state billionaires, it appears that not all of the public housing tenants have been properly notified about the takeover of their housing.
Kenya Johnson and Francesca Barnett have spent a number of years living at a public housing unit on Russell St., in Berkeley. On Tuesday March 18, Francesca Barnett said, " Where we live there is a duplex and a house located at this property. All three units are still fully occupied with public housing tenants. I live in a two bedroom unit with my room mate Kenya. There is nothing that I can say about our building being sold. Far as I know we have not received a notice yet telling us that our home has been sold. In fact, around two weeks ago someone came by and told us that our building has not been sold. I have lived here around a year, and my room mate has lived here for around four years or more. I definitely am under the impression that my home was not sold yet, and that we are still public housing tenants. I am surprised to hear that our housing has been sold if that is the case. We were told that depending on who buys the property, that it will be the deciding factor on what will happen to us. We were advised that we may receive a 30 Day Notice, or a 60 Day Notice telling us that we may have to move somewhere else, when the building is sold. But it depends on who will buy our housing. They do not allow us to have a say in regards to what happens to our public housing."
The February 11, 2014, notice to some of Berkeley's public housing tenants from the BHA tells them that their 75 public housing units have been sold to the new ownership entity, Berkeley 75, LP, effective February 14, 2014. Additionally, the notice tells the tenants that Berkeley 75, LP, will be their new landlord, and that the BHA will no longer have any involvement in their tenancy. The tenants were advised that beginning February 14th and continuing through the end of the rehabilitation of their housing units that they can use Section 8 vouchers to move if they decide to do so. A phone number or address was not listed on the notice to the tenants in regards to how they can contact the new owners of their 75 privatized housing units.
Out-of-state billionaires Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross of The Related Companies took control of Berkeley's 75 public housing units on February 14, in a complicated deal that edged out local nonprofit housing developers. Many of Berkeley's low-income families have become displaced as a direct result of the sell out of Berkeley's 75 public housing units that originally were supposed to remain as public housing units in perpetuity, when they were built with taxpayer funding.
Former public housing tenant Terry Pete said, "I was pressured out of my public housing around a year ago after living in Berkeley's public housing for much of my life. I was pressured out of my housing and have been made homeless. I had to move in with some of my relatives to avoid living on the streets. I was not given a Section 8 housing voucher and moved because the stress was so horrible living at the public housing project once they started to pressure tenants out of their public housing units. The stress caused major health problems for me. Many others were pressured out of their housing also, and someone needs to look in to what has happened to us."
For background of the new owners of Berkeley's privatized public housing units, in 2010 it was reported that Jorge M. Perez owned 75% of The Related Companies, and that billionaire Stephen M. Ross a 95% owner of the Miami Dolphins football franchise, owned 25% of the multi-billion dollar development company.
After the billionaires targeted Berkeley's 75 public housing town-homes for privatization, during September, 2011, the Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) announced that it had entered into an exclusive negotiating rights agreement with The Related Companies of California, LLC, that would last 90 days, with a possible 30 day extension to negotiate the full terms of the deal.
With political connections directly to the White House, Jorge M. Perez a co-founder of The Related Companies has been a major political fundraiser for President Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and was an advisor to ex-President Bill Clinton during his term in office.
In recent years Perez and Ross have also been involved in a major project to privatize many of Oakland's public housing units in a partnership with the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA), and the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), a so-called nonprofit housing developer. As a direct result of the partnership, during recent years the Oakland Coliseum Gardens public housing units were demolished, 178 low-income families were displaced from their homes, and the new rehabilitated project is now called Lion Creek Crossings at the former 22 acre site.
To give you an idea about the way EBALDC feels contempt for low-income public housing tenants, on the EBALDC website they currently refer to the old Coliseum Gardens public housing complex as the notorious 1964 OHA public housing development, when describing how nice the newer Lion Creek Crossings privatized rental housing project is. However, the website fails to mention that a 15 year old girl was shot and killed during late December of 2012 at Lion Creek Crossings along with a 14 year old boy who was also shot during that same incident, and that 15 year-old Hadari Askari was gunned down at the same housing complex on July 10, 2012.
Elsie Smith was another public housing tenant in Berkeley, and said, "I was a public housing tenant for fourteen years and moved out of there around two years ago when they offered me a Section 8 housing choice voucher and told me that they wanted to sell my housing. They put a lot of pressure on us to get out of there. I am lucky, because things turned out alright for me. However, it did not turn out so well for others that did not want to move out of their long time public housing."
Eleanor Walden a former Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner said, "I have heard of problems with elderly people being given a notice of two days to get out of their housing lately. Berkeley used to be a moral island that was better than many other places, but now it is no better than cities in Mississippi. We put people on the streets, and there is no morality here any more. We sit back and wait for the axe to fall, and fear that our lives will be eroded and demeaned by people that throw a lot of money around, and displace us in the process. I am horrified by what is going on and do not know what we can do about it. It is inhumane and it is a bad situation for the poor in Berkeley at this point. It is an injustice to the low-income families in Berkeley who face displacement because their public housing has been sold to some billionaires."
Payments Now Being Made To Billionaires -
According to released documents rents have been collected from Berkeley's former public housing tenants with an appropriate proration forwarded to Berkeley 75, LP, the new ownership entity. The BHA also delivered the first list of potential renters on February 20, to Berkeley 75, LP, for the newly privatized federal subsidized project-based units.
In addition, Berkeley 75, LP, is currently screening the first group of applicants for suitability as tenants at the eventually to-be rehabilitated 75 town homes. The potential tenants face a stiff double examination before being allowed entry into the former public housing units as new tenants, and have to be cleared by both Related and the BHA before moving into the privatized housing units.
The incorporation papers for Berkeley 75 Housing Partners, LP, were filed in Sacramento on 4/13/2012, and the entity address is located at 18201 Von Karman Avenue, Suite 900, Irvine California.
Once the privatized units are rehabilitated, inspected, and the new tenants are chosen with new contracts signed, the BHA will start earning as little as $75 per month, per unit in administration fees from the privatized public housing units sold to the out-of-state billionaires.
For additional information, Jorge M. Perez one of the billionaire owners of the recently privatized Berkeley public housing units, is known as the "Condo King" of Miami, Florida, because he has developed and owns so many condominiums in that region through The Related Companies/Related Group. He is also known as a billionaire Cuban American real estate developer.
Perez is also the majority owner of The Related Companies, which is also the parent company of The Related Companies of California, LLC, another wealthy housing development corporation.
Billionaires Made Out Like Some Fat Rats In Public Housing Takeover -
Public records reveal that the out-of-state billionaires got a sweet deal for their efforts to grab Berkeley's public housing units from the poor. It cost The Related Company around $35 million to buy Berkeley's 75 public housing units, at a cost that works out to be around $99 per square foot, even though the median price of housing in Berkeley is currently going for around $454 per square foot.
Public records also reveal that the City of Berkeley loaned the Related Companies of California $400,000 in predevelopment costs to fund some of the costs associated with the disposition and rehabilitation of Berkeley's 75 public housing town homes from the Berkeley Housing Authority. However, the $400,000 loan was later converted to a grant that left the taxpayers holding the bag, and made the taxpayers responsible to pay off the loan.
Payments To Consultants To Privatize Berkeley's 75 Public Housing Units -
On March 13, 2014, the BHA Commissioners also voted to pay an additional $23,241 in consultant fees to EJP/Praxis Consultants, even though the deal is done and the public housing units have already been sold. And it also appears that during the past three years the BHA payed EJP/Praxis consultants as much as $98,711 in total for their assistance in privatizing Berkeley's 75 public housing units, and selling them to out-of-state billionaires Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross, of The Related Companies. The original cost was expected to be as little as around $37,000 for consulting fees to EJP/Praxis before the costs shot up to around $100,000.
Additionally, documents reveal that on May 12, 2011, the BHA Commissioners voted to pay Overland, Pacific and Cutler an amount of $147,000 to relocate the tenants from their public housing units, and these amounts do not reflect the full costs of legal expenses and other costs associated with privatizing Berkeley's 75 public housing units.
Documented Sequestration Budget Cuts To Federal Housing Programs And Section 8 Vouchers -
Despite the sale of Berkeley's 75 public housing units to some out-of-state billionaires, budget cuts to HUD's federal housing programs may eventually result in higher rents for the new tenants moving in to the privatized former public housing units in Berkeley.
A 224 page Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released during early March 2014, reveals that the massive sequestration across-the-board budget cuts have savaged our nation's federal subsidized housing programs, including the Section 8 housing choice voucher program.
In total, according to the GAO report the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that due to sequestration funding cuts Public Housing Authorities provided rental assistance payments to 42,000 fewer low-income households during 2013, compared to Fiscal Year 2012. HUD also estimates that sequestration funding cuts to Homeless Assistance Grants will lead to states and localities removing as many as 60,000 formerly homeless persons from housing and emergency shelter programs all across the nation, placing them at risk of ending up back onto the cold hearted streets of America.
Additionally, sequestration reduced funding for HUD's project-based housing assistance program, through which HUD makes payments to owners of multifamily rental housing units on behalf of around 1.2 million low and very low-income families. Available funding to renew contracts for this program decreased from $9 billion to $8.6 billion.
No one could be reached at the Berkeley Housing Authority for comment at the time this story was published.
2014-03-18 by Lynda Carson [tenantsrule@yahoo.com], posted to [https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/03/18/18752786.php]:
Berkeley - A March 13, 2014, memorandum from the Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) announced that the disposition project to privatize and dispose of Berkeley's 75 public housing town homes closed as recent as Friday, February 14, 2014. According to the BHA, a February 11, 2014, notice was sent out to all current public housing residents advising them of the transfer of ownership of their public housing housing units to a private entity.
Meanwhile, current and former Berkeley public housing tenants are speaking up and shedding a little bit of light on what has been happening at Berkeley's 75 public housing units once the decision was made to privatize and sell their public housing units to out-of-state billionaires Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross, of The Related Companies.
Contrary to the claim by the BHA that a notice was sent out on February 11, to notify Berkeley's public housing tenants that their homes have been sold to some out-of-state billionaires, it appears that not all of the public housing tenants have been properly notified about the takeover of their housing.
Kenya Johnson and Francesca Barnett have spent a number of years living at a public housing unit on Russell St., in Berkeley. On Tuesday March 18, Francesca Barnett said, " Where we live there is a duplex and a house located at this property. All three units are still fully occupied with public housing tenants. I live in a two bedroom unit with my room mate Kenya. There is nothing that I can say about our building being sold. Far as I know we have not received a notice yet telling us that our home has been sold. In fact, around two weeks ago someone came by and told us that our building has not been sold. I have lived here around a year, and my room mate has lived here for around four years or more. I definitely am under the impression that my home was not sold yet, and that we are still public housing tenants. I am surprised to hear that our housing has been sold if that is the case. We were told that depending on who buys the property, that it will be the deciding factor on what will happen to us. We were advised that we may receive a 30 Day Notice, or a 60 Day Notice telling us that we may have to move somewhere else, when the building is sold. But it depends on who will buy our housing. They do not allow us to have a say in regards to what happens to our public housing."
The February 11, 2014, notice to some of Berkeley's public housing tenants from the BHA tells them that their 75 public housing units have been sold to the new ownership entity, Berkeley 75, LP, effective February 14, 2014. Additionally, the notice tells the tenants that Berkeley 75, LP, will be their new landlord, and that the BHA will no longer have any involvement in their tenancy. The tenants were advised that beginning February 14th and continuing through the end of the rehabilitation of their housing units that they can use Section 8 vouchers to move if they decide to do so. A phone number or address was not listed on the notice to the tenants in regards to how they can contact the new owners of their 75 privatized housing units.
Out-of-state billionaires Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross of The Related Companies took control of Berkeley's 75 public housing units on February 14, in a complicated deal that edged out local nonprofit housing developers. Many of Berkeley's low-income families have become displaced as a direct result of the sell out of Berkeley's 75 public housing units that originally were supposed to remain as public housing units in perpetuity, when they were built with taxpayer funding.
Former public housing tenant Terry Pete said, "I was pressured out of my public housing around a year ago after living in Berkeley's public housing for much of my life. I was pressured out of my housing and have been made homeless. I had to move in with some of my relatives to avoid living on the streets. I was not given a Section 8 housing voucher and moved because the stress was so horrible living at the public housing project once they started to pressure tenants out of their public housing units. The stress caused major health problems for me. Many others were pressured out of their housing also, and someone needs to look in to what has happened to us."
For background of the new owners of Berkeley's privatized public housing units, in 2010 it was reported that Jorge M. Perez owned 75% of The Related Companies, and that billionaire Stephen M. Ross a 95% owner of the Miami Dolphins football franchise, owned 25% of the multi-billion dollar development company.
After the billionaires targeted Berkeley's 75 public housing town-homes for privatization, during September, 2011, the Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) announced that it had entered into an exclusive negotiating rights agreement with The Related Companies of California, LLC, that would last 90 days, with a possible 30 day extension to negotiate the full terms of the deal.
With political connections directly to the White House, Jorge M. Perez a co-founder of The Related Companies has been a major political fundraiser for President Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and was an advisor to ex-President Bill Clinton during his term in office.
In recent years Perez and Ross have also been involved in a major project to privatize many of Oakland's public housing units in a partnership with the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA), and the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), a so-called nonprofit housing developer. As a direct result of the partnership, during recent years the Oakland Coliseum Gardens public housing units were demolished, 178 low-income families were displaced from their homes, and the new rehabilitated project is now called Lion Creek Crossings at the former 22 acre site.
To give you an idea about the way EBALDC feels contempt for low-income public housing tenants, on the EBALDC website they currently refer to the old Coliseum Gardens public housing complex as the notorious 1964 OHA public housing development, when describing how nice the newer Lion Creek Crossings privatized rental housing project is. However, the website fails to mention that a 15 year old girl was shot and killed during late December of 2012 at Lion Creek Crossings along with a 14 year old boy who was also shot during that same incident, and that 15 year-old Hadari Askari was gunned down at the same housing complex on July 10, 2012.
Elsie Smith was another public housing tenant in Berkeley, and said, "I was a public housing tenant for fourteen years and moved out of there around two years ago when they offered me a Section 8 housing choice voucher and told me that they wanted to sell my housing. They put a lot of pressure on us to get out of there. I am lucky, because things turned out alright for me. However, it did not turn out so well for others that did not want to move out of their long time public housing."
Eleanor Walden a former Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner said, "I have heard of problems with elderly people being given a notice of two days to get out of their housing lately. Berkeley used to be a moral island that was better than many other places, but now it is no better than cities in Mississippi. We put people on the streets, and there is no morality here any more. We sit back and wait for the axe to fall, and fear that our lives will be eroded and demeaned by people that throw a lot of money around, and displace us in the process. I am horrified by what is going on and do not know what we can do about it. It is inhumane and it is a bad situation for the poor in Berkeley at this point. It is an injustice to the low-income families in Berkeley who face displacement because their public housing has been sold to some billionaires."
Payments Now Being Made To Billionaires -
According to released documents rents have been collected from Berkeley's former public housing tenants with an appropriate proration forwarded to Berkeley 75, LP, the new ownership entity. The BHA also delivered the first list of potential renters on February 20, to Berkeley 75, LP, for the newly privatized federal subsidized project-based units.
In addition, Berkeley 75, LP, is currently screening the first group of applicants for suitability as tenants at the eventually to-be rehabilitated 75 town homes. The potential tenants face a stiff double examination before being allowed entry into the former public housing units as new tenants, and have to be cleared by both Related and the BHA before moving into the privatized housing units.
The incorporation papers for Berkeley 75 Housing Partners, LP, were filed in Sacramento on 4/13/2012, and the entity address is located at 18201 Von Karman Avenue, Suite 900, Irvine California.
Once the privatized units are rehabilitated, inspected, and the new tenants are chosen with new contracts signed, the BHA will start earning as little as $75 per month, per unit in administration fees from the privatized public housing units sold to the out-of-state billionaires.
For additional information, Jorge M. Perez one of the billionaire owners of the recently privatized Berkeley public housing units, is known as the "Condo King" of Miami, Florida, because he has developed and owns so many condominiums in that region through The Related Companies/Related Group. He is also known as a billionaire Cuban American real estate developer.
Perez is also the majority owner of The Related Companies, which is also the parent company of The Related Companies of California, LLC, another wealthy housing development corporation.
Billionaires Made Out Like Some Fat Rats In Public Housing Takeover -
Public records reveal that the out-of-state billionaires got a sweet deal for their efforts to grab Berkeley's public housing units from the poor. It cost The Related Company around $35 million to buy Berkeley's 75 public housing units, at a cost that works out to be around $99 per square foot, even though the median price of housing in Berkeley is currently going for around $454 per square foot.
Public records also reveal that the City of Berkeley loaned the Related Companies of California $400,000 in predevelopment costs to fund some of the costs associated with the disposition and rehabilitation of Berkeley's 75 public housing town homes from the Berkeley Housing Authority. However, the $400,000 loan was later converted to a grant that left the taxpayers holding the bag, and made the taxpayers responsible to pay off the loan.
Payments To Consultants To Privatize Berkeley's 75 Public Housing Units -
On March 13, 2014, the BHA Commissioners also voted to pay an additional $23,241 in consultant fees to EJP/Praxis Consultants, even though the deal is done and the public housing units have already been sold. And it also appears that during the past three years the BHA payed EJP/Praxis consultants as much as $98,711 in total for their assistance in privatizing Berkeley's 75 public housing units, and selling them to out-of-state billionaires Jorge M. Perez and Stephen M. Ross, of The Related Companies. The original cost was expected to be as little as around $37,000 for consulting fees to EJP/Praxis before the costs shot up to around $100,000.
Additionally, documents reveal that on May 12, 2011, the BHA Commissioners voted to pay Overland, Pacific and Cutler an amount of $147,000 to relocate the tenants from their public housing units, and these amounts do not reflect the full costs of legal expenses and other costs associated with privatizing Berkeley's 75 public housing units.
Documented Sequestration Budget Cuts To Federal Housing Programs And Section 8 Vouchers -
Despite the sale of Berkeley's 75 public housing units to some out-of-state billionaires, budget cuts to HUD's federal housing programs may eventually result in higher rents for the new tenants moving in to the privatized former public housing units in Berkeley.
A 224 page Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released during early March 2014, reveals that the massive sequestration across-the-board budget cuts have savaged our nation's federal subsidized housing programs, including the Section 8 housing choice voucher program.
In total, according to the GAO report the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that due to sequestration funding cuts Public Housing Authorities provided rental assistance payments to 42,000 fewer low-income households during 2013, compared to Fiscal Year 2012. HUD also estimates that sequestration funding cuts to Homeless Assistance Grants will lead to states and localities removing as many as 60,000 formerly homeless persons from housing and emergency shelter programs all across the nation, placing them at risk of ending up back onto the cold hearted streets of America.
Additionally, sequestration reduced funding for HUD's project-based housing assistance program, through which HUD makes payments to owners of multifamily rental housing units on behalf of around 1.2 million low and very low-income families. Available funding to renew contracts for this program decreased from $9 billion to $8.6 billion.
No one could be reached at the Berkeley Housing Authority for comment at the time this story was published.
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