Housing Authority responds to critical report from HUD

Sito Negron

Tuesday, April 6, 2004 | 9:52 a.m.

The Las Vegas Housing Authority has replied to a scathing federal report issued in early February that slammed it for poor management, called for an accounting of how $2.9 million was used and asked why almost 800 housing units were destroyed without being replaced.

"Generally speaking as an organization, the LVHA has completed some major tasks which have helped respond to many of HUD's findings, concerns and recommendations," wrote the authority's interim director, Parviz Ghadiri, in a March 20 letter to Joyce Lee, a Housing and Urban Development administrator in San Francisco.

"For the past five months LVHA management and staff have worked toward our common goal of making our agency successful on all levels," Ghadiri wrote.

HUD's manager in Las Vegas, Ken Lobene, did not return telephone calls seeking comment last week and Monday.

The HUD report was compiled at the behest of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who last summer replaced four of the authority's five commissioners and asked the department to provide board training. The board oversees a 50-year-old, $65 million annual operation that serves about 15,000 people.

One of the concerns in the HUD report was that the authority lacked a replacement housing plan, which led to the loss of 783 units, about a quarter of the available living space. While some demolition was approved, it was with the condition that replacement housing be built, HUD noted.

That led board Chairman Bobby Gronauer to request an accounting of the replacement housing program.

Information provided to HUD, and a separate report generated as a response to Gronauer's inquiry, list eight projects in which demolition or disposal of housing have taken place since 1996, with half coming since 2001. Only 103 units have been built in that time.

Ghadiri said 21 homes were sold to low-income families, so "they've gone to great purpose ... Our job is to empower them to leave the public housing. The 21 should not be really counted as units disposed of."

He said 464 units of housing are in the planning stages.

"Also, the housing authority received 369 extra vouchers in support of demolition applications," Ghadiri said. "A voucher is as good as or better than housing."

Among other issued identified in the HUD report:

The Las Vegas Housing Authority replied that the temporary legal contract was based on the lawyers' prior contract with the Clark County Housing Authority and was approved by the board.

In the case of Roberson, the authority claims that it was authorized to award the contract, as long as it was below $10,000. "Unfortunately and unexpectedly," the authority's response notes, Roberson exceeded the limits by $445 in 2001 and $585 in 2002, which the housing authority will repay, Ghadiri wrote.

Gronauer said he thinks the authority is responding to HUD report."