Shoddy renovation of HUD apartments in Opa-locka unconscionable. Audit the developers, like Marco Rubio says.
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Developers received $24 million to do a total renovation on a dirty, moldy and dilapidated housing complex for low-income residents in Opa-locka. When residents finally returned to their apartment units, they say they came home to a dirty, moldy, dilapidated rehab. The optimistic, but thin, coats of paint couldn’t hide the nastiness.
Commend Sen. Marco Rubio for responding this week to a Miami Herald investigation and calling for a financial audit of the owners of Glorieta Gardens apartments. The Department of Housing and Urban Development should comply — quickly. The so-called renovation is abominable, leaving families, and especially children, vulnerable to chronic illnesses, such as asthma — courtesy of American taxpayers, who would not stand for such an epic failure in their own homes. Neither should HUD. Sad to say, we are not optimistic.
If the plight of the residents, who have to constantly wash down their walls with bleach to get rid of mold, isn’t persuasive enough, then what looks like an egregious waste of taxpayers’ money should be.
Unfortunately, neither might be enough to get HUD to care, even though problems have been long-enduring in such federally subsidized public housing and predate the current administration, which put former brain surgeon Ben Carson at HUD’s helm.
According to an NBC News investigation in November, there are more families living in HUD housing that fails health and safety inspections now than in 2016: mold, roaches, mice, lead, leaks and brown water gushing from the faucets. More than 1,000 of HUD’s 28,000 multifamily properties failed their most recent inspection. The failure rate is more than 30 percent higher than in 2016, according to NBC News’ analysis of HUD records.
Glorieta Gardens, with 328 units, was among them. In 2015, New Vision Housing Foundation, which owns the complex, took millions in tax credits and tax-exempt bonds to renovate it. In May 2018, however, HUD inspectors gave Glorieta Gardens a failing grade. When the owners appealed, the complex received a score of 67 out of 100. Passing, but barely.
Glorieta Gardens must be made right. When it comes to housing, Greater Miami is inhospitable to low-income families. They need a roof over their heads, even if it leaks — or collapses. That’s why they stay.
HUD says the higher failure rate can be traced to what it says are more-stringent requirements. But if the department is not enforcing those requirements, ultimately giving shoddy rehabs and the companies that do them a pass, then its own lack of accountability simply breeds the same down the line.
As for how the $24 million was spent, that’s what Rubio wants to know. We all should — it’s our money. Three years ago, the building’s owner, Dilip Barot, sold the property to Glorieta Partners for just over $20 million. That partnership was made up of Barot’s wife, Naimisha, and New Vision, the principal owner. And Barot and his wife own the rehab-development company and the contractor. Pretty cozy.
HUD housing has been their bread and butter, and it’s time to determine whether they should continue to benefit — especially if Glorieta Gardens is an indication of the quality of their “work.” A HUD audit could pry some answers loose — that is, if HUD is truly committed to being a steward of taxpayers’ money and providing low-income families, who do pay a percentage of the rent, with safe, clean housing free of health hazards. If.