(The following letter was sent to Rae Oliver Davis, the U.S. inspector general for Housing and Urban Development by Congressman Jeff Van Drew on March 15.)
Dear Ms. Davis,
I request that the Office of the Inspector General for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development open an investigation into the Atlantic City Housing Authority to determine if any criminal violations occurred in the administration of the authority in the past five years.
The Atlantic City Housing Authority has received tens of millions of dollars in federal funds over the past five years. Despite these substantial resources, the authority utterly failed to fulfill its contractual responsibility to maintain clean and safe conditions for the residents of its six housing complexes. This failure is squarely the result of legally dubious procurement practices enforced by the Atlantic City Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners, and their agents.
Rae Oliver Davis, HUD U.S. inspector general
At the heart of this impropriety is the authority board’s issuance of millions of dollars of no-bid contracts that failed to deliver on contract terms. These contracts were often for essential services and infrastructure and just as often failed to improve or rehabilitate Atlantic City’s public housing.
The authority board relentlessly insisted upon using this non-competitive process despite the evident ineffectiveness. This practice was most egregious during the pandemic when the authority issued millions of dollars of non-competitive bids under the guise of an “emergency declaration.”
The authority imposed this improper procurement regime over the protests of multiple executive directors. These former executive directors publicly called into question the procurement practices enforced by the authority board. These directors were promptly removed by the board, and now allege that they were removed in acts of reprisal.
Why did the authority so relentlessly pursue ineffective tactics and so ruthlessly crush dissent?
Incompetence or negligence only explains so much of the board’s behavior. The established pattern of ineffectiveness, stubborn insistence and reprisal raises reasonable suspicion that individuals associated with the Atlantic City Housing Authority are guilty of criminal fraud.
It has become necessary to open a penetrating and comprehensive criminal investigation into the practices of the Atlantic City Housing Authority.
The Inspector General very recently unsealed bribery and corruption charges against 70 current and former New York City Housing Authority employees for comparable procurement abuses. I ask that you adopt the same thoroughness and forcefulness in investigating the Atlantic City Housing Authority.
Your investigation should scrutinize every single contract that has passed through ACHA in the past five years. You should examine all actions associated with the development and execution of all contract agreements at a granular level. You should interview every individual that has associated with the Housing Authority under oath through depositions.
You should not hesitate to subpoena relevant documents. You should attempt to identify any instances of extra-organizational communications between current or former authority officials and their preferred vendors. You should assess whether contracts delivered the promised result in a manner consistent with federal health and safety guidelines.
Very importantly, you must analyze whether failure to fulfill a contract resulted in any changes by Authority officials in awarding such contracts to the defaulting contractors. You should leave no stone unturned.
While the inspector general conducts this investigation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development must place all activities and responsibilities of the authority into receivership with the federal government to ensure continuity of operations. This is a matter of law and justice. This is a matter of good governance and accountability.
Ultimately, this is a humanitarian matter of making sure that our most vulnerable citizens are living with dignity and security. I urge you to pursue this investigation with the full intensity that the seriousness of the Atlantic City housing crisis calls for.
Sincerely,
Jeff Van Drew
Member of Congress
