If you haven’t yet heard, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is currently under fire for spending $31,000 of taxpayer dollars on a dining set at the same time HUD was proposing massive cuts to public housing and Section 8 programs. Observers have rightly pointed out the hypocrisy of his lavish spending at a time when HUD is proposing to cut critical programs that support and house the lowest income and most vulnerable people across the country due to “insufficient funds.”
While many are shocked by this brazen display of arrogance, Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition is not. This culture of wasteful spending juxtaposed against calls for harsh austerity and cutbacks is pervasive at HUD and its local public housing agencies. We are reminded that Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (an agency who has bragged that their current privatization plans “perfectly align” with Ben Carson) is currently spending millions of dollars on a team of privatization consultants at the same time they claim to be short on funds.
Their circular justification for hiring these private consultants (many of whom have longstanding relationships with MPHA director Greg Russ) is that MPHA can only “preserve” public housing through privatizing it. Disregarding the obvious fact that privatized housing is not public housing, it seems self-explanatory that an agency short on cash would be better served spending that cash on repairs and upkeep, rather than spending it on Greg Russ’s friends and associates. MPHA has spent zero dollars on making repairs needed for homes like Glendale, while they increase their salaries, and remodel their office spaces, rather than spending our tax dollars on making repairs needed for public housing buildings, family homes, and Glendale Townhomes. We hope that the current attention on Ben Carson will lead to greater scrutiny of the way MPHA allocates their funds. The public deserves a complete audit of MPHA because now MPHA in many ways mirror the gross and obvious corruption displayed by Secretary Carson.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/