New Haven Independent

Cruz, a Fair Haven community organizer, was sworn in Wednesday at his first meeting on the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH).

One of the first matters that came up was a proposal to forgive $272,000 of unpaid HANH rents. Cruz voted no. The HANH staff proposal did not pass.

“I genuinely feel that for some of the more recent rents, a greater effort should be made at collection,” Cruz said. “I can understand rents from a year and a half ago, but not a few months.”

Cruz, appointed by Mayor John DeStefano, is filling the chair of David Alvarado, whose term has just expired.

A senior philanthropic officer at the Greater New Haven Community Foundation, Cruz has been instrumental in piloting a homeownership-driven model of community building that has resulted in the revitalization of the Chatham Square neighborhood in Fair Haven. He is also active in area historic preservation projects.

At last month’s HANH meeting, Alvarado also voted against vacating those rents, that is, writing them off for HANH’s audit purposes, without first making more strenuous efforts at collection.

Click here for a previous story on the issue.

Most of the unpaid rents, according to Executive Director Karen Dubois-Walton, are due to people having died, gone into nursing homes, or skipped town without leaving a forwarding address, making collection all but impossible. The uncollected $272,000 date from January 2007 through September 2008.

HANH has retained a collection agency to pursue all the accounts. The dollars harvested so far: zero.

Dubois-Walton had promised another effort at collection before bringing the matter before the board after the November meeting. But instead offurther effort at finding the delinquents, the staff did further analysis. It concluded there is little possibility of collecting the owed rents, except if any of the deadbeats applies for a new HANH apartment. Then past obligations must be fulfilled first.

Commission Chair Bob Solomon said he would excuse himself from the vote because he recognized some of the names on the non-payment list. “Some of these people have jobs,” he said, suggesting that if they had unpaid debts to HANH something might yet be done, and some rents collected.

Dubois-Walton argued most of the list should still be written off based on her staff’s research. “However, you better be sure we’re going to do some further research on the names that were flagged by Commissioner Solomon.”

HANH has a collection rate in the 90 percent range across some 2,000 units of low- income housing. Still, given the financial constraints, every little bit helps. Cruz said he too wants to see more of an effort, particularly as relates to the most recent accounts, before he would approve the proposal.

The motion to vacate will likely come up again at Cruz’s second meeting as a commissioner in January.

Beginning in 2009, HANH’s regular commissioners meetings will be held the third Tuesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. Convened at HANH headquarters at 360 Orange St. on the 3rd floor, the meetings are open to the public.