Over $1M was supposed to go to public housing. Instead it went to golf trips and travel.

[Dashinka 25,876]

By Allison Maass 

 

June 28, 2017 05:07 PM EDT

How far can $1 million go to fix long-over-due building maintenance projects? 

Just ask Delores Calloway, resident of Camptown Gardens and president of the tenant's association.

The public housing complex in Irvington, New Jersey, is in desperate need of repairs. There are holes in the ceilings due to water damage, electrical wires hanging out and rusty pipes showing through. Sometimes rats fall through the ceiling in the community room. 

Walking down into the basement where Calloway's office is located, there is a strong smell of must, with water on the floor under the latest leaking pipe, piles of debris where the ceilings have caved in and a dead mouse laying at the bottom of the stairwell. She said this used to be a space for kids, but the neglected maintenance has made it unusable.

 

"This is reprehensible that people have to live under these conditions," Joe Epps, Camptown Gardens resident said. 

The complex houses a variety of people, from families to the disabled. A blind man lives in an apartment where mold creeps up the walls, and he cannot use the toilet in his unit because the plumbing needs to be fixed. 

"He have a leak in there. His toilet isn’t working. He has to pee in a bucket. And then when you look around he has spider webs all on top of the ceiling. The refrigerator is busy," Calloway said. "For him to be a blind man he needs some help. It’s supposed to be a safe environment place to live in and it’s not."

The over 600 units at Camptown Gardens is managed by the Irvington Housing Authority (IHA), which receives funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In March, HUD's Office of Inspector General (OIG) released an audit questioning $1.2 million dollars spent by the authority between 2014 and 2016. 

HUD OIG found IHA had spent over $90,000 on ineligible items, including Costco memberships, AAA memberships, an award dinner, gift cards, flowers, a salary advancement, golf and banquets. 

On their website, IHA published pictures of a 2014 golf outing at the Metuchen Golf and Country Club in Edison, NJ. The photos appear to be a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness and attendees can be seen eating from a buffet.

 

https://www.circa.com/story/2017/06/28/politics/over-1m-was-supposed-to-go-to-public-housing-instead-it-went-to-golf-trips-and-travel

[IAMX 3,055]

The wonderful efficiency of money at gunpoint.

[TBoneTX 47,518]

Those people should be made to refund every penny, lose their jobs, and face criminal indictment.

[jg121783 3,921]

3 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

Those people should be made to refund every penny, lose their jobs, and face criminal indictment.

They should also be forced to live in the building they allowed to become run down as a punishment.

[Dashinka 25,876]

1 hour ago, jg121783 said:

They should also be forced to live in the building they allowed to become run down as a punishment.

A fitting punishment!

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

1 hour ago, jg121783 said:

They should also be forced to live in the building they allowed to become run down as a punishment.

There was a good movie about that. A judge sentences a slum Lord to live in his own building