By Gary Taylor and Rachael Jackson, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.
Feb. 8--The Sanford Housing Authority can replace worn sewer pipes, rebuild dangerous staircases and patch broken kitchen cabinets, but the agency's executive director said it can't afford to make its decades-old public-housing complexes livable for its 1,200 residents.
"I'm putting a Band-Aid over a gushing wound," Angel Tua said.
The agency's problems were made public last month after its board members discovered the authority owed creditors hundreds of thousands of dollars, including more than $108,000 in unpaid water bills to Sanford. During January's cold snap, many residents complained that their heat didn't work. That same month, City Commissioner Velma Williams was outraged when she saw sewer water pooling in front of Castle Brewer Court apartments.
"There's no excuse for the conditions to have gotten to the point that they have gotten," Williams said.
Federal authorities are investigating whether the debt is the result of mismanagement or theft. The Sanford Police Department is assisting them.
Today, the housing authority will attempt to prove to city commissioners that it is making improvements. The city, which appoints authority board members but otherwise has no control over the federally funded agency, has threatened to condemn units if the situation doesn't improve.
And though Tua says they can fix short-term problems, operating 480 outdated units in six complexes with $4.9million a year is not sustainable.
The only real answer is to tear down the apartments and start over, he said.
In 2001, after a series of Orlando Sentinel stories detailed questionable management, shoddy conditions, conflicts of interest and an executive director who spent housing funds on an on-site cosmetology school, the Sanford Housing Authority was declared a "troubled agency."
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development took over in 2003, hired Tua in 2005 and restored local control in 2006.
Nine years later, HUD still considers the authority a "troubled agency."
Sanford Mayor Linda Kuhn said she wants HUD to take over again.
"To me it's just appalling that people would be allowed to live in substandard housing," she said. "I think that there is a responsibility on the federal government's part that if they are going to provide housing that it be far better than what [residents are] getting."
A HUD spokeswoman said there are no plans for a takeover, though the agency will review the housing authority's finances and management practices in the next month to determine the next step.
Old units
Meg Burke, who lives in the Redding Gardens complex, said neither her air conditioning nor her heat works. Her air conditioner, she said, leaked into her closet, ruining her clothes with mildew.
"They're not doing the work," she said about complex managers.
Another resident showed a Sentinel reporter an apartment where the kitchen cabinets are warped and worn with age. In his bathroom, tiles buckle off the walls. The toilet leaks.
Housing authority officials don't make excuses for the condition of the units.
"They are beyond their life expectancies and usefulness," Tua said. The newest complex -- Lake Monroe Terrace -- was built in 1972, but others date to the early 1950s.
Millions of dollars have gone into improvements, but the apartments have never passed physical inspection -- not even under HUD, Tua said.
Tua said he took over an agency with 12 years of deferred maintenance, and to fix all the problems would cost an estimated $19 million. At one point, 4,236 needed repairs were identified. Tua said he has taken care of about 3,600 of them.
The agency, once plagued by high vacancy rates, now has just 10 vacant units, with another six out of service awaiting mold and mildew removal, Tua said.
'Biggest red flag'
Recent past-due bills once amounted to about $400,000 but will be down to about $100,000 by the end of the month, Tua said. This year's money, however, has already been spent to pay last year's debts.
Monthly financial reports last year never indicated any problems. Tua, who oversees a staff of 15, said it was only when the agency began closing out the books for the fiscal year that ended June 30 that he began noticing discrepancies.
The "biggest red flag" was when he saw that money from an account holding tenant deposits had been co-mingled with other funds and spent, he said. Two accountants were hired and then fired in 2009. Two other employees, one who had been there since 1998, were laid off in December, with their dismissal letters citing "financial challenges."
Tua said he doesn't know whether the unpaid bills are a result of criminal activity or "incredibly sloppy" bookkeeping.
A new model
Adding to the debt is a 15-year, $4 million bank loan that the housing authority took out in 2004. About half of the authority's annual capital-improvement budget must go to repay the loan, which was originally intended to accelerate repairs, including replacing roofs, upgrading plumbing and painting.
Tua still wants to find a way to replace worn-out complexes. According to one plan, 170 dwelling units would be replaced with 418 units ranging from resident-owned homes to an assisted-living facility, Tua said. He proposes a mixed-income community instead of the current apartment complexes that serve only the poor.
He said the redevelopment could be funded with tax credits and loans. A HUD spokeswoman said it was premature to discuss those plans. But housing authority Commissioner Maria Penzes said officials need to find a way to make it happen.
"The redevelopment is the only thing that will help us [get to] that point where we're not always in a reactive mode," she said.
Gary Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@orlandosentinel.com or 407-391-9681. Rachael Jackson can be reached at rjackson@orlandosentinel.com or 407-540-4358.
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