Housing authority reprimands managers
The Fayette County Housing Authority has issued written reprimands to some project managers after collection losses for the last three months totaled $34,679 – nearly half of the $70,000 budgeted for the entire fiscal year. Unpaid rents and utilities, along with damages to housing authority property, comprise the category, which is also known as vacated accounts. Department head Dennis Barclay, who supervises the project managers, said it was impossible to justify such things as letting a tenant rack up a $2,000 utility bill.
“I’ve reprimanded the individuals involved,” said Barclay, who added that the authority often plays a delicate balancing game in its quest to retain decent tenants. If he strictly adheres to the lease, including a provision that permits nonrenewal for any tenant who is late with rent four times in a 12-month period, Barclay said he could remove two of every three tenants from public housing.
“I can make this place a ghost town by following the lease,” said Barclay, prompting board member Beverly Beal to note, “Maybe we should (do that).”
Barclay had the project managers explain how some of the most egregious vacated accounts were allowed to swell. Those letters and notes of explanation were distributed to the board and the press.
They included a Belle Vernon Apartments write-off of $2,342 for a handicapped man who caused considerable damage with his motorized wheelchair. “He had a humongous, a huge, wheelchair … He had a very powerful wheelchair,” said Barclay, who noted the man took “huge chunks out of the sides of the walls” while trying to maneuver in his apartment.
Barclay said the man also “smashed the elevator door” with his wheelchair, necessitating its repair even though those doors are made of steel.
In another case, a woman tenant at Gibson Terrace was permitted to rack up $2,150 in utility bills. In his explanation, the project manager there wrote, “I really screwed up by trying to work with this tenant … The utilities were not put in her name upon transfer. I was able to recover $600, then I realized that it was not working (so) I started eviction proceedings. She then passed away.”
Explaining a $603 charge-off in Lemon Wood Acres, the project manager there wrote that the tenant stopped paying rent once the housing authority started eviction proceedings against her for stabbing her boyfriend.
While board vice chairman James V. Bitonti said he was “disappointed” that the collection loss/vacated accounts figure was so high – he called it “earth shaking” – Barclay said the situation is even worse.
Barclay said the authority has at least another $20,000 in damages from a single housing unit that isn’t yet listed on the books. Solicitor John Purcell said that while the authority won a judgment in that case at the district justice level, it has been appealed to court.
“I’ve seen the pictures. It’s amazing,” said Purcell.
Barclay said the situation involves a Uniontown housing unit that has “people-sized holes” in every wall because of domestic violence. Upon inspecting the unit, Barclay said, “I saw kids swinging from electric wires, though holes (in the walls).”
As the board mulled its options regarding speedier evictions, Barclay noted that in another case, a tenant who was arrested “for a kilo of cocaine” remains in public housing because of slowness in the legal system.
Nonetheless, Barclay said he wasn’t about to defend a charge-off of nearly $35,000 in the first three months of the current fiscal year. He pledged to crack down on the process internally, making sure that project managers stay on top of problems as much as is feasible and practical.
Referring to the heavily damaged Uniontown unit, when Barclay rhetorically asked if the board wanted him to “nail them for $20,000,” board chairman Kenneth L. Johnson and board member Angela M. Zimmerlink each responded with a resounding, “Yes.”
Executive Director Thomas L. Harkless reminded the board that because the authority now accurately calculates the cost of vacated accounts, the numbers are higher than in the days when repairs weren’t part of the equation.
Because of the difference in bookkeeping, Harkless said that today’s $35,000 charge-off might only have shown up as $3,500 in uncollected rents five years ago. Harkless said the staff is now including a full assessment of damages when tallying the figure.