nothin WPCA Targets Church | New Haven Independent

WPCA Targets Church

DSCN8023.JPGOne of the city’s older black churches is scrambling to stop the sewer authority from grabbing its building.

A foreclosure sale is scheduled for Feb. 2 for the Trinity Temple Church of God in Christ at 285 Dixwell Ave.

The sale was scheduled after the Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) won a judgment of foreclosure sale against the 340-member church in Connecticut Superior Court in a bid to recapture unpaid sewer bills.

The case is one of at least 125 foreclosure suits the WPCA has filed against New Haven property owners since the authority was spun off from city government and became an independent, suburban-dominated utility in mid-2005. The WPCA has become the most aggressive utility in town in going after people’s homes for unpaid bills, rather than relying on judgment liens or other forms of debt collection. Click here to read a story about that.

The authority said it needed to institute an aggressive, multi-front collection policy in order to boost a 92 percent collection rate that has cost it $1 million in lost revenue. Its tactics, meanwhile, present a challenge to a city already wrestling with a brewing foreclosure crisis. (Click here to read about city government leaders’ vow to make the issue a top 2008 priority.)

That’s the world we live in,” Trinity Temple’s leader, Bishop Charles Brewer, said Wednesday. The church has been in the community for 100 years. It’s been on that spot for 40 years. I don’t think a municipality would have filed this suit.”

The WPCAs suit against Trinity Temple is different from almost all its other foreclosure actions in an important respect — it’s for a bill that goes back to 1991 and stood at $8,678.81 by the end of December 2006, according to the court file.

By contrast, the majority of WPCA foreclosure cases reviewed at the court clerk’s office were for less than $2,000 in debts, as low as $793.

DSCN8025.JPGTrinity Temple’s property is worth $750,000, according to the court file; the congregation has $500,000 of equity.

Therefore, said the church’s attorney, Robert Perrotti, a foreclosure probably won’t take place.

They’re in the process of trying to refinance” and therefore get the cash to pay the WPCA, Perrotti said. They’ve gotten an appraisal, but with lots of weird conditions. Lenders deal with churches [as] a specialized area.”

The court originally ordered a sale of the property for last August. That sale was called off because the church was refinancing its mortgage. However, as that process was delayed, the new Feb. 2, 2008 sale date was set.

They owe us a lot of money,” said Dominick DiGangi, who runs the WPCA. They haven’t paid in a long, long time. The bank stepped up, and we held off.”

The church’s financial problems mounted over the years as Bishop Brewer encountered extensive health problems, according to attorney Perrotti.

Brewer said Wednesday that he had been hospitalized in recent years with problems with his ulcer and a sciatic nerve. He’s better now, he said — except recently he got pneumonia. He was interviewed in the bedroom of his home on Roydon Road, where’s he’s recuperating, and asked not to be photographed. (The WPCA filed a foreclosure suit for that house, too; Brewer said that case has been closed without a sale going through.)

Brewer has led Trinity Temple for the past 37 years. His father, also named Charles, ran it before him. His son (Charles as well) is preparing to succeed into the position.

And, the WPCAs lawsuit aside, it appears there will be a church for the son to run.

Read previous Independent coverage of New Haven’s foreclosure crisis:

Ä¢ WPCA Goes On Foreclosure Binge
Ä¢ Subprime Mess Targeted
Ä¢ Renters Caught In Foreclosure King’s Fall
Ä¢ She’s One Of 1,150 In The Foreclosure Mill
Ä¢ Foreclosures Threaten Perrotti’s Empire
Ä¢I’m Not Going To Lay Down And Let Them Take My House”

The following links are to various materials and brochures designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

How to prepare a complaint to the Department of Banking; Department of Banking Online Assistance Form; Connecticut Department of Banking, Avoiding Foreclosure; FDIC Consumer News; Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, Inc; Connecticut Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service.

For lawyer referral services in New Haven, call 562‑5750 or visit this website. For the Department of Social Services (DSS) Eviction Foreclosure Prevention Program (EFPP), call 211 to see which community-based organization in the state serves your town.

Click here for information on foreclosure prevention efforts from Empower New Haven.

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