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Just when you thought that all the Housing Authority did was raise your rent every now and then, guess what reared its ugly head. Scandals!
The Oakland Tribune is reporting that the Berkeley Housing Authority misused federal funds and that two city reports are asking the Berkeley City Council to fire the Housing Authority’s staff of 22.
The reports–one of them made by Manuela Albuquerque, the city attorney–state that the Housing authority gave federal subsidies to landlords who had at least 15 deceased tenants. Added to that, subsidies were given out to residents who did not qualify for them.
Albuquerque said that the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been notified.
This is a huge snafu for the city council, who is the governing body of the Housing Authority. Even though they were not directly involved with the matter of who got subsidies and whatnot, the council still feels that they were somewhat responsible. Cue councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who agrees with us:
bq. We have egg on our face. This looks very bad on the city. We’ve always been told (by the staff) that HUD is the bad guys, that their reporting requirements were onerous. But I do take some responsibility.
bq. We had these audits and we never dug in enough. We should have asked some tough questions. I think this will be a shock to the council because this is the first we’ve heard there’s a problem.
HUD? The bad guys? Usually people don’t like the big federal government meddling with a little city’s plans, but it looks like if the council had just listened to HUD, this may have been prevented. HUD is now asking the city council to give governance of the Housing Authority to an independent commission.
Maybe the council should cede governance and just stick to trying to impeach President Bush.
Berkeley Housing Authority paid rent for at least 15 dead tenants [Oakland Tribune]
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