Investors profited from affordable housing should be filed in the Miami Herald as another chapter in the ongoing saga, "House of Lies".Is there any difference between the Cenziper story of the Miami Dade Housing Agency used as a private piggy bank by aspiring lobbyists and developers or today's Haggman/Vasquez story describing how the promise of affordable housing, used to secure development permits, defrauded taxpayers and trickled profits to speculators, some of whom are politically connected? It's the SAME story!
Kudos to the Herald. There have to be a thousand more varieties, all should be filed under “House of Lies”.
The House is the building boom itself, that created legions of paper millionaires and whose foundation was liar loans, mortgage fraud, and incestuous relationships between lenders and builders.
The House is the Related Group's development, for which city and county elected officials awarded public money designated for affordable housing. Units designated to be affordable were flipped by investors, some of whom were politically connected individuals who had bought at pre-construction prices and sold before the condo crash.
The lies are the processes of local government that fed builders and developers whatever zoning changes they wanted in farmland—far from reasonable transit or jobs--, instead of taking care of the public health and welfare of the needy for affordable housing, for schools, or infrastructure improvements.
The fraud includes former county commission chairman, and current commissioner, Joe Martinez who landed a sweetheart deal in West Dade, with a lot sold to him by a director of the Latin Builders Association at below market value. Martinez asked for and received permission from the blind-as-a-bat Miami Dade Ethics Commission to have another prominent member of the Latin Builders Association provide free services in constructing Martinez’ home.
We’d say to the poor African Americans who recently protested the Latin Builders Association luncheon featuring former counsel to the LBA and now assistant secretary to HUD, Orlando Cabrera, read the history of what happened—don’t put down your signs yet.
Now that the production housing market has crashed—and single family homes sit empty and vacant by the hundreds in what was once South Miami Dade farmland—expect HUD, in its planned take-over of the county housing agency, to favor the same local builders and interests who sold the housing boom as a public benefit while greedily defrauding taxpayers and the public interest at every intersection.
Now that the single-family and condo home markets have crashed, these distressed paragons of economic virtue will be looking for deals with HUD to save their sorry cash-flows.
Miami Herald reporters should be very busy indeed.
The recent, past building boom contained the seeds of the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on South Florida taxpayers. The stories are just beginning to bloom.
5 comments:
Your facts are there. You said it all. No further comment is needed. Perhaps we can stir up the people who are being cheated and maltreated so that they go after these crooked builders and politicians and hang them all.
GIMLETEYE BEAT ME TO IT...I HATED READING THIS STORY...THIS IS BIG.
SINCE WHEN DOES AL LORENZO QUALIFY FOR WORKFORCE HOUSING -- ANYONE KNOW HIS WIFE'S NAME, I WILL LOOK UP HOW MUCH HE OWNS....
HAGGMAN WROTE:
The draft audit says 33 of the 102 affordable units -- priced between $99,000 and $216,000 -- were resold within a year of closing. The list of those who benefited includes Miami political strategist Al Lorenzo, who works as a lobbyist for City Hall and was the campaign manager for Mayor Manny Diaz.
Diaz did not return a phone message requesting comment.
Lorenzo bought his unit for $137,900, the draft audit states. He sold it for $230,000 -- a $92,100 markup.
Next chapter should be Midtown Miami affordable housing untis. Where are they??? Who bought them? Who flipped them?
Please let your friends know about this blog and this post. If enough people wake up, maybe there will be movement to throw out every single elected officials who was part of these disasters at city and county hall.
Not that there is anything that can be done about it. As long we try to build workforce housing through private developers (i.e. the developer must go through normal banks for financing etc) then they must sell a high % of their units preconstruction. No middle income person can afford to put 20% (usually around $50K) down on a condo that is 3 or 4 years away. The middle income govt employees who the project was marketed to (who make up many of the people who work around the building) mostly HAD to sell the units when it was built because they got socked with massive taxes on the units (often more than their mortages). Its an "afforbable" building but its on pricey land to it gets taxed like any luxury unit would.
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