As the mayor continued to express no concern over the rash of foreclosure suits filed by New Haven’s sewer authority, Board of Aldermen President Carl Goldfield (pictured) said he plans to investigate.
Goldfield announced Monday that he and Westville Alderwoman Ina Silverman will introduce a resolution at next week’s full board meeting calling for a public hearing into the 130-plus foreclosure suits initiated by the Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA).
The authority has been filing those suits since it was spun off by the city in 2005 and became an independent regional group. Its aggressive tactics have come under fire from legal-aid lawyers and a state judge for trapping troubled property owners deeper in debt — for bills as low as $793 — at a time of a brewing foreclosure crisis. Click here, here, here, and here for previous stories on the subject.
Goldfield made the announcement during a City Hall press conference Monday about the city’s priorities for the upcoming state legislative session.
He was careful not to criticize the WPCA or pre-judge its enforcement tactics. Rather, he said the actions merited closer inspection. He said he and Silverman want to “get to the bottom of it and why they’re taking that action, and why people aren’t paying their bills… Are these people who are financially distressed and can’t afford to pay it? Or are these people who feel this is an easy way to budget” since the WPCA can’t cut off their service? “Is this some sort of oppressive action on the part of the WPCA? Or is this a legitimate enforcement action?”
According to WPCA chief Dominick DiGangi, the authority decided to step up debt-collection efforts to improve a 92 percent collection rate that has piled up $1 million in losses that get passed along to ratepayers.
Goldfield said he’s particularly interested in knowing what kinds of customers are having the suits slapped on their properties. A review by the Independent of cases on file at the courthouse revealed a wide array of debtors: homeowners; local people who own second properties in the city; out-of-state lenders or speculators; in once case a prominent Dixwell church.
One city administration critic, mayoral hopeful Darnell Goldson, has called for a moratorium on WPCA foreclosures. A national expert in dealing with foreclosures and abandoned properties, Dan Kildee, suggests a subtler, two-pronged approach: redoubling efforts to keep homeowners in place and avoiding foreclosing on them; while foreclosing faster on speculators and out-of-state lenders whose properties might otherwise languish for years and bring down their surrounding neighborhoods.
Just Pay Your Bills
Mayor John DeStefano, on the other hand, repeated Monday that he sees no cause for concern in the WPCA’s actions. He said he has seen no reason to look further into the matter — or, as part of his state legislative agenda, to ask New Haven’s Capitol lawmakers to pressure the WPCA to ease up. New Haven State Sen. Martin Looney previously sponsored a bill that pressured Yale-New Haven Hospital to ease up on similar aggressive debt-collection tactics that put people in danger of losing their homes.
“I’m not specifically aware that it’s a problem,” DeStefano said when asked about the WPCA’s actions at Monday’s City Hall press conference on his priorities for the upcoming legislative session.
Click on the play arrow to watch DeStefano and Goldfield discuss the WPCA issue.
DeStefano noted that none of the WPCA suits has yet led to the agency actually taking over someone’s house. He was asked about Judge Anthony DeMayo’s criticism — in foreclosure court, and in this article — that the WPCA’s tactics are piling dangerous levels of new court and legal costs on people already at risk of losing properties.
“I don’t know if I agree with that,” DeStefano replied. “The real issue here is that we have an imperfect system” on property taxes “and we ought to correct that” with a property-tax hike.”
DeStefano’s aggressive lack of interest in the WPCA case may stem from the fact the he created the problem: His administration pushed through the plan to cede control of the agency to a suburban-dominated authority in order, in part, to plug a budget hole with one-time revenues.
“Look, there’s a price to be paid here” if people don’t pay bills, DeStefano said Monday.
DeStefano said that people should pay their bills. His remarks echo the DeStefano administration’s approach in 1998 during a previous period in which New Haveners had trouble holding onto property. At the time his administration, seeking a one-time infusion of cash, sold tax liens to the Breen Corporation. Breen in turn hired the Marcus Law Firm to handle the liens. Critics, including then-Westville Alderwoman Nancy Ahern, complained that the firm would pile up exorbitant fees and interest charges on elderly homeowners and others already struggling to pay past-due tax bills. Click here to read about that episode. (Story takes a while to load.)
Read previous Independent coverage of New Haven’s foreclosure crisis:
• 2 Days, 8 Foreclosure Suits
• WPCA Goes On Foreclosure Binge
• A Guru Weighs In
• WPCA Targets Church
• Subprime Mess Targeted
‚Ä¢ Renters Caught In Foreclosure King’s Fall
‚Ä¢ She’s One Of 1,150 In The Foreclosure Mill
‚Ä¢ Foreclosures Threaten Perrotti’s Empire
‚Ä¢“I’m Not Going To Lay Down And Let Them Take My House”
The following links are to various materials and brochures designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.
How to prepare a complaint to the Department of Banking; Department of Banking Online Assistance Form; Connecticut Department of Banking, Avoiding Foreclosure; FDIC Consumer News; Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, Inc; Connecticut Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service.
For lawyer referral services in New Haven, call 562‑5750 or visit this website. For the Department of Social Services (DSS) Eviction Foreclosure Prevention Program (EFPP), call 211 to see which community-based organization in the state serves your town.
Click here for information on foreclosure prevention efforts from Empower New Haven.