New Haven Independent

Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) Comptroller LaVonta Bryant recommended to the authority’s Board of Commissioners Tuesday that it write off the unpaid rents and fees from 2007 and 2008.

The HANH board, like most boards, generally accepts staff recommendations. But not this time. At HANH’s Tuesday’s monthly board meeting, the motion failed, an unusual occurrence.

The uncollected debts, Bryant explained, had all been sent to a collection agency.

“And what was the result?” asked a skeptical David Alvarado, vice chair of the HANH board, who was helming the meeting for an absent Chairman Bob Solomon.

“Not a single dollar collected,” answered Bryant (pictured). “Not a one.”

Alvarado expressed concern that some of the unpaid rents were rather recent. Perhaps something more can be done, he said.

His colleague on the board, Louise Pearsall (pictured at the top of the story with Alvarado), asked that if the resolution passed, would it mean that the money would be completely lost?

“The only way we might get any of it back,” said Bryant, “is if people want to move back into public housing. Then they have to pay it back first.”

HANH regulations state that unpaid balances of $500 or more would be approved for write-off after being placed with a collection agency for at least six months; amounts under $500 would be approved for write off after a 30-day period with the collection agency.

Still Alvarado was hesitant. His reluctance had caught on.

HANH Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton said, “Most of these people who skipped out are not the kind of people with assets or with salaries that we can attach.”

Regulations also dictate that anyone whose main sources of income are welfare or SSI, cannot have their income attached.

“I take the commissioners’ vote to mean they just want us to do more to collect some of this debt.”

Alvarado nodded in the affirmative.

DuBois-Walton was at pains to point out that rent collection at HANH has climbed in recent years to 97 to 98 percent. That squares with a quick review of the long-delinquent $272,000. It indicates it represents debt from January 2007 through September 2008 and from a relatively small number of people who have skipped a month’s rent; then get a late fee; then get served papers, which they are also billed for; then another month’s rent, and so on, so an individual’s unpaid balance, even in smallish amounts, adds up to the thousands.

DuBois-Walton was asked what she and her staff will do between now and the next meeting to collect where a collection agency was unable to prevail.

“We’ll send out some more letters. In many cases, the problem is locating these people,” she said. “But we’ll do what we can and come back at next month’s meeting and come up with some more refined figures. For example, maybe we can still work on collection of 20 percent of the amount, and we can write off the rest.”