[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 42 (Monday, April 18, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       THE PUBLIC HOUSING MORASS

                                 ______


                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 18, 1994

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member would like to commend to his 
colleagues the following editorial from the April 15, 1994, Washington 
Times, concerning the corruption and scandal surrounding the District 
of Columbia's Department of Public and Assisted Housing.
  Both daily newspapers in the city have condemned the mismanagement, 
corruption and betrayal of the District's citizens by this agency. As 
the Washington Post reported on April 15, 1994, the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development will move to establish more oversight 
over the District's housing programs. The Post reported that ``One of 
the first changes will be for the District's housing department to put 
all Federal funds it receives into a bank account separate from those 
used by other city agencies.'' Certainly this is a needed step, and one 
which should have been taken long ago.

              [From the Washington Times, April 15, 1994]

                       The Public Housing Morass

       Now we know why thousands of families can languish on 
     waiting lists for public housing in the District, some for as 
     many as seven years: They don't have enough money to bribe 
     their way into an apartment. The allegations of bribery 
     lodged against five employees of the Department of Public and 
     Assisted Housing (DPAH) are absolutely stunning. Of about 400 
     tenants who received housing assistance payments over the 
     past four years, as few as 15 did so through proper channels, 
     according to a two-year investigation.
       Some people held the process in such disregard that they 
     acted as brokers, coordinating bribes between friends and 
     relatives and housing employees. One top administrator 
     allegedly sent vouchers, which are used as money to subsidize 
     rent for the poorest tenants, to her sister in Chicago. 
     Meanwhile, families unable to afford housing try to play it 
     by the rules and end up waiting it out in city shelters or on 
     the streets.
       The question is not whether the District's Department of 
     Public and Assisted Housing should be placed into 
     receivership, but when. Corruption is evidently so extensive 
     and mismanagement so thorough that only a body that is 
     independent of city politics will be able to actually ``see'' 
     the problems, fix them and prevent them from occurring again.
       The bribery investigation began in early 1992 courtesy of 
     Ray Price, who was then director of DPAH. He notified police 
     and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that 
     he suspected grants were being exchanged for bribes. The FBI 
     joined the probe in 1993. Not long afterward, Mr. Price quit, 
     having run headlong into the same obstacles that frustrated 
     several of his predecessors--a politically motivated, 
     meddlesome administration.
       Receivership is the recommendation of the special master 
     appointed by a D.C. Superior Court judge last spring to 
     identity the source of the department's malfunction. Clearly, 
     something drastic is needed to wrench the agency out of its 
     chronic misery. Nothing else has worked so far--certainly not 
     the stream of a dozen directors in 15 years, not scathing 
     reports from federal reviewers, not the threat of fines from 
     the court and not a new mayor with big promises.
       Politics is the precise factor that has kept public housing 
     mired in its persistent problems. Public housing units have 
     become no more than convenient backdrops for capturing 
     political agendas in photo opportunities. That was true of 
     the last administration and is no less true of the present 
     one. Removing the mayor's office from the formula seems a 
     sensible idea.
       Politics, after all, is what drove the passionate though 
     unrealistic promises Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly made three 
     years ago about restoring 2,200 units within 18 months. She 
     was completely unaware of the land mines, from unhelpful 
     personnel rules to incompetence to (it appears now) 
     corruption.
       She made an impossible vow, and when the heat came on she 
     rolled a head. The last one belonged to Robert Jenkins, who 
     was canned after less than a year on the job despite a court 
     recommendation to keep him in place. He succeeded Mr. Price, 
     who also was appointed by Mrs. Kelly. One of Mr. Stockard's 
     earlier reports had pinpointed the continued problems to the 
     constant change in directors.
       Naturally, Mayor Kelly and city leaders are resistant to a 
     takeover. It is a political liability to concede turf or have 
     it snatched from you at any time, let alone in an election 
     year. The administration reportedly is contemplating creation 
     of a special five-member policy-making board that would 
     provide the department with direction. But with the mayor as 
     chairman, as the mayor proposes, such a board will be 
     useless. What seems to have escaped notice here is that the 
     mayor's office and her practice of excessive interference 
     have been identified as major stumbling blocks to progress at 
     DPAH.
       No one doubts that Mayor Kelly and other city leaders truly 
     want to improve public housing in the District. The problem 
     is that many of them have been at it for more than a decade, 
     and their heartfelt desires are not turning into results. If 
     results there are to be, they are probably going to have to 
     come from the outside.

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