Paul Bass Photo
Marx: Questions need to be asked “at the highest levels.”
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Harp: This “heartache could have been avoided.”
How did federal inspectors offer a rosy inspection of the crumbling Church Street South housing complex — and then a year later give it a score of only 20 out of 100?
That question arises from a newly released federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report on conditions at the 301-unit subsidized complex across from the train station.
And it adds fuel to a call issued by Mayor Toni Harp for Congressional hearings into how HUD looks after — or doesn’t look after — conditions at low-income housing developments where it pays millions of dollars a year in rents.
Has HUD simply been grossly incompetent in conducting inspections? Or was someone on the take?
The newly released report shows that a September 2015 reinspection of the complex yielded a score of 20 out of 100. Inspectors found 1,015 violations, 512 of them considered life-threatening, such as inoperable smoke detectors to blocked fire exits.
HUD spokeswoman Rhonda Siciliano said Wednesday that it’s rare to see a complex score so low.
The report’s other violations ranged from tripping hazards, broken and missing hand rails, peeling paint, wheelchair-inaccessible routes, damaged locks, exposed electrical panels, and damaged walls to missing doors, buckled ceilings, inoperable bathroom ventilation systems, steps missing from stairs, plumbing leaks, and mildew.
Click here to view the full report.
On one level, besides the requirement that life-threatening violations be fixed within 72 hours, the new inspection’s results are a “moot” matter, Siciliano said. Because HUD, the city, and the complex’s private owner, Northland Investment Corp., have all agreed on the decision to clear out all the tenants this year and raze the development. (Read more about that here.) HUD had already declared Northland in default of its agreement under which HUD pays more than $3 million a year to the private Massachusetts company for annual Section 8 rental subsidies for all the tenants.
“I don’t think anyone’s surprised [at the score] given the conditions and the photos people have seen,” Siciliano said. “Thankfully we have a plan in place” to move tenants out.
Scenes from Church Street South.
But on a broader level, the plummeting new reinspection score raises the question about how HUD enforces its Section 8 contracts. Just a year before this latest inspection, HUD gave Northland a whopping score of 81 for Church Street South — even though city of New Haven inspectors were regularly offering dismal scores. Tenants told the Independent that HUD inspectors would visit the same few apartments — the ones in best condition. HUD did this latest, more revealing reinspection only after New Haven Legal Assistance filed suit and called for a reinspection, and the city condemned apartments and ordered widespread emergency repairs.
Mayor Harp said Wednesday that she’s “pleased that HUD’s inspection reports finally align with ours. Much of this heartache could have been avoided if HUD had an adequate system of monitoring these inspections, especially when the complaints and the inspection reports are out of sync.”
Excerpt from the HUD report.
Speaking previously on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program, Harp on Nov. 2 called for Congressional hearings into how HUD allowed Church Street South to deteriorate past the point of rescue while continuing to pay Northland the rents and give the company passing inspection scores; and into how HUD similarly allowed another Section 8‑subsidized complex in town, Antillean Manor, to deteriorate almost as badly. (Click here and here to read about that.) Connecticut’s two U.S. senators offered on Nov. 9, through spokespeople, to pursue Harp’s call.
Harp said Wednesday that she now “need[s] to follow up with our federal delegation on the potential of hearings on what appear to be pervasive inspection inaccuracies.”
New Haven Legal Assistance attorney Amy Marx, too, called the new score “not surprising” and indicative of a need for further investigation.
“We asked for the reinspection because the high passing score seemed so bogus. Now that HUD has officially documented the extent of the failing conditions, there are a lot of questions that need to be asked at HUD at the highest levels. This situation has implications for public housing conditions nationwide.”
During a New Haven visit last week, HUD Secretary Julian Castro was asked by New Haven Register reporter Mary O’Leary about the disconnect between HUD inspection scores and the reality of decrepit, unlivable conditions at Church Street South. He suggested that Church Street South benefited from the fact that mold — a primary health problem at the complex — doesn’t figure into inspection scores, a practice that Castro said should change. (Read O’Leary’s report here.)
Previous coverage of Church Street South:
• Church St. South Tenants Get A Choice
• Home-For-Xmas? Not Happening
• Now It’s Christmas, Not Thanksgiving
• Pols Enlist In Church Street South Fight
• Raze? Preserve? Or Renew?
• Church Street South Has A Suitor
• Northland Faces Class-Action Lawsuit On Church Street South
• First Attempt To Help Tenants Shuts Down
• Few Details For Left-Behind Tenants
• HUD: Help’s Here. Details To Follow
• Mixed Signals For Church Street South Families
• Church St. South Families Displaced A 2nd Time — For Yale Family Weekend
• Church Street South Getting Cleared Out
• 200 Apartments Identified For Church Street South Families
• Northland Asks Housing Authority For Help
• Welcome Home
• Shoddy Repairs Raise Alarm — & Northland Offer
• Northland Gets Default Order — & A New Offer
• HUD, Pike Step In
• Northland Ordered To Fix Another 17 Roofs
• Church Street South Evacuees Crammed In Hotel
• Church Street South Endgame: Raze, Rebuild
• Harp Blasts Northland, HUD
• Flooding Plagues Once-Condemned Apartment
• Church Street South Hit With 30 New Orders
• Complaints Mount Against Church Street South
• City Cracks Down On Church Street South, Again
• Complex Flunks Fed Inspection, Rakes In Fed $$
• Welcome Home — To Frozen Pipes
• City Spotted Deadly Dangers; Feds Gave OK
• No One Called 911 | “Hero” Didn’t Hesitate
• “New” Church Street South Goes Nowhere Fast
• Church Street South Tenants Organize