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Section 8 Management

Printed From: MiddletownUSA.com
Category: Middletown City Government
Forum Name: City Manager
Forum Description: Discuss the city manager administration including all city departments.
URL: http://www.middletownusa.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2832
Printed Date: Nov 22 2024 at 12:15pm


Topic: Section 8 Management
Posted By: NRS
Subject: Section 8 Management
Date Posted: Mar 19 2010 at 12:46pm
Is there an absence of transparency and accountability in Middletown's government?  Yes or No?


Replies:
Posted By: wasteful
Date Posted: Mar 19 2010 at 2:33pm
NRS the main problem with the Section 8 administration and MPHA right now is that the "tail is wagging the dog" and getting away with it, but then again they voted for this group.

Posted By: NRS
Date Posted: Mar 19 2010 at 4:10pm
Good government in Middletown should be predicated upon transparency and accountability!

Posted By: wasteful
Date Posted: Mar 20 2010 at 11:39am
NRS I would suggest that the main problem here is with CONSOC and the fact that for to long they have been doing things the way they want them done, hence the "tail wagging the dog comment."
 
The MPHA meeting has basically become a joke of listening to useless statistics which can be handed out in paper form or placed on the website and gone over at the citizens leisure.  To go line after line over complaints, inspections, etc. is a waste of time.
 
CONSOC is a one shot wonder if they lose the Middletown contract I would venture to say  they are out of business.  The Inspection Group is/has handled many HA inspection from California  to Ohio to Florida to Michigan and more.
 
CONSOC appears to be operating in the Commodore 64 era and the rest of the world is in the Windows 7 era.
 
Just my opinion now.  I still don't understand Council's voting to go with this group.

Posted By: Vivian Moon
Date Posted: Mar 20 2010 at 3:43pm

Wasteful,
    Anyone that has ever been around HUD inspection could have told them that this new inspection group would not work here in Middletown. In fact I did call Toni Marconi and told him that the inspection needed to be done by a local company. Toni said that there was NO qualified HUD Inspection Vendors in the area. I just don't believe this statement. I know of numerous people in Middletown that are more than qualified to do HUD housing inspections.

    As with any goverment program it is all about filling out and filing paperwork on time...tons and tons of paperwork.
    Like sooo many other jobs in Middletown the inspection of HUD property was not put up for bid.
    I do not believe the problem is CONSOC.

Posted By: wasteful
Date Posted: Mar 20 2010 at 5:18pm
What is the problem with The Inspection Group and why won't they work in Middletown?  They seem to be doing 1000's of inspections across the country and are up on the latest HUD requirements.
 
http://www.theinspectiongroup.com/index_insp.html - http://www.theinspectiongroup.com/index_insp.html

Posted By: Vivian Moon
Date Posted: Mar 21 2010 at 4:21pm
Wasteful
Did you watch the last meeting?...Mercy!!
In order to set up a data base the very first thing you need is the data. In this case it would be the address and names of the 1662 vouchers.
TIG stated at the last meeting that they did not have this information in their system. WHAT!! After three months they still haven’t typed in the master list of properties that they would be inspecting during the next 12 months??
That should have been the very first thing that they requested when they got the contract in order to set up their data base.
Then he went on to say that 70% of the inspections failed. WHAT?
However a few minutes later he stated that if the inspections were not  completed on the properties they marked them failed. Why would you mark it failed if the inspection had never been completed? Why not “Not Inspected”.
TIG does not have it’s ducks in a row…
They need to go ASAP!

Posted By: wasteful
Date Posted: Mar 21 2010 at 5:36pm
Yes Vivian I watched the last meeting and I got the distinct impression that CONSOC was the cause of much of the problem.  They can't or won't print out the reports, etc., etc.
 
As many agencies that the TIG is doing I am sure they must have a client end to their software that allows reports to be generated.  So what is the holdup.
 
It appears to me that CONSOC is being less than cooperative in this matter presently.  CONSOC is only in existence because of its Middletown contract from what I can see. TIG group is nationwide and I doubt they will miss doing Middletown in the grand scheme of things. 
 
The last time I got a print out of all of the landlords in Middletown it came on 500+ pages one landlord on a page because CONSOC could not produce a report with more than one landlord on a page.  Go figure.   Consoc is no longer the Big Dog in the Section 8 game in Middletown and they don't like it if you ask me.  Personally I would have never voted for them in the first place, they were the most expensive and gave the worst report of all of the Vendors.
 
At the last meeting Adkins told all of Council/MPHA that they should have all of this worked out by this month and if we don't Council/MPHA should be asking some questions.   Didn't see a whole lot of questions being asked.  Specifically what the hell is going on and who is not doing the job that we are paying them for.  Typical Council/MPHA meeting.
 
Questions to ask:
 
1)  Does the TIG have all needed Data from Consoc?
2)  If not why not"?  If so why hasn't the data been entered in their system?
3)  Who is holding up this whole process and why?
4)  Why can't CONSOC produce the needed reports?
5)  Is there a client end to the software that TIG uses for clients to generate reports?
Etc. Etc. Etc.
 
 
 
 
 

Posted By: Vivian Moon
Date Posted: Mar 21 2010 at 7:18pm
Wasteful
The City has the Section 8 Master List...sooo why didn't Mr. Adkins share the list with TIG?
I don't believe the problem is with CONSOC.
I think Anita, AJ and Josh did a fine job of asking questions about the section 8 mess...also Mr. Picard for putting the rules in place.

Posted By: NRS
Date Posted: Mar 21 2010 at 8:32pm
How do you rate the quality of Middletown's governement?  Good, Average or Poor?

Posted By: wasteful
Date Posted: Mar 21 2010 at 11:14pm
NRS you are talking about different times under different circumstances.  Plus NRS you are not exactly the most unbiased person at this point in time to discuss anything to do with City Hall and its admin.  . 
 
I see no reason for the TIG to come into Middletown and make an intentional mess of the system.  I may be wrong, but it appears that CONSOC is having it toes stepped on and duties and funds diminished by the new rules put into place and requirements of the new contract.  Did not CONSOC use to be paid for doing the inspections? 
 
Ms Moon if I am not mistaken it is basically TIG and CONSOC that are interacting on this information and the information is to basically be integrated into a report of some fashion that is distributed to the city and MPHA monthly.  CONSOC as the administrator of the program, I would think that would fall under their responsibility.  I believe it was most likely the housing committee where the Policy statement was formulated concerning Section 8 that Picard read.
 
No I do not work for the City nor am I an elected official and I don't work for any of the companies involved.  Just a private citizen that is tired of watching this city go down the tubes and the amount of time spent on this issue by the city is ridicules.  It is like a 3 ring circus and now the Housing meeting has become the open clown act for the city council meeting.

Posted By: Mike_Presta
Date Posted: Mar 22 2010 at 12:05am

Last year I requested a list of all Section 8 owners and their property addresses.  They were emailed to me within a few hours (as I recall).  I received them one per page, in the ".pdf" format, as described by someone else earlier in this thread.  As I recall, there was a short forewarning that the list might be a few months out of date.



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“Mulligan said he ... doesn’t believe they necessarily make the return on investment necessary to keep funding them.” …The Middletown Journal, January 30, 2012

Posted By: wasteful
Date Posted: Mar 22 2010 at 12:54am
Concerning the questioning by Mr. Laubach, Smith and Scott-Jones.  Once again we had Mr. Laubach calling for an open discussion on the Goals and Objectives of the city concerning the Section 8 and HUD plans.  He called for this same discussion by the MPHA back in January I believe and was put off and told that time had been set aside at the RETREAT for this discussion, well that time never came.
 
Once again this month we got the we must have certain data in order to have an "Intelligent" conversation about these matters and that won't be available until this Summer.  Now myself, like Mr. Laubach I would think the time to discuss the Goals and Objectives concerning Section 8 and HUD matters is before you submit the 1 year and 5 year plans to HUD come this April..  But once again Council/MPHA just sat there and let City Admin push it aside as they usually do.  Mr. Laubach at least tried but with little help from fellow MPHA members it is a lost cause. 
 
Adkins said he would get with CONSOC and see if they could get an extension which you and I both know that isn't going to happen.
 
Now I have have several questions:
 
1)  If we need this all important information coming this summer to have an "INTELLIGENT" conversation about the Goals and Objectives of the HUD programs, how did Adkins and CONSOC write the original "INTELLIGENT" Goals and Objectives of the plans without this information?
2)  Why would the City Council/MPHA not discuss these goals and objectives before sending the final plans to HUD?   We are talking about the next 5 years here. 
3)  I am personally leery of a for profit company, CONSOC, which profits from having a large amount of Section 8 as Middletown does being involved in assisting in writing the Goals and Objectives of the city concerning these programs.    I do not believe that CONSOC is an innocent bystander in the run up of the number of Section 8 vouchers that the city currently has.
4)  As has been stated elsewhere here why does Adkins feel that having Citizen consensus is not "Critical" to the plans success?
5)  Why does the City Council/MPHA ask so few questions about matters that concern this city so deeply?
6)  Why are we advertising in Hamilton and Oxford and god knows where else for people to be on the Middletown Section 8 list?
 
I mean the questions just keep coming but the answers are never there for the citizen.   


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