Local Interest: HUD Secretary Jackson Resigns In Disgrace

HUD Secretary Jackson Resigns In Disgrace

By Lynda Carson March 31, 2008

The nation's top housing official Alphonso Jackson, resigned in disgrace from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), amid numerous criminal investigations by the FBI, a federal grand jury, the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, and the HUD Inspector General.

Jackson is facing criminal investigations for allegedly awarding numerous lucrative HUD housing contracts to friends and cronies, and was sued recently by the Philadelphia Housing Agency after Jackson allegedly retaliated against the agency when it refused to sell some of their land to a friend of his in the music business. Jackson's resignation is effective April 18.

In one HUD contract alone, $127 million was awarded to a redevelopment project that included the Columbia Residential corporation of Atlanta, which was part of a contracting team with financial ties to Jackson. It is reported that Columbia Residential still owes Jackson around $250,000 from when he was associated with them before he joined HUD as deputy secretary back in 2001.

With the nation's housing crisis front and center in the mind of the public, recent calls for Jackson's resignation by Senator Christopher Dodd and Senator Patty Murray who claim that Jackson is not fit to run HUD, made news headlines across the nation.

In a written statement after Jackson declared that he was stepping down from his position as HUD secretary, Senator Murray said, "Ten days ago, I called on Secretary Jackson to resign because it was clear that the ethical allegations against him meant that the Bush administration's ineffective housing policies were being burdened by an even more ineffective HUD secretary. Today, Secretary Jackson has decided to move on, but the immense challenges ahead of us to calm the housing crisis remain.”

In a resignation statement released by HUD, Jackson said, '"On April 18th, I will step down as Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters. Now is such a time for me."

Housing activists believe that Roy Bernardi the deputy HUD secretary, or Brian Montgomery (a Bush crony with alleged corruption problems of his own) will be named to replace Jackson. Roy Bernardi was considered to be a snitch by some in Jackson's office, because Bernardi has testified against Jackson during the on-going investigations.

Age 62, Alphonso Jackson was born in Marshall, Texas, oversaw HUD's $37 billion annual budget including 9,200 employees, and was confirmed as the 13th HUD Secretary on March 31, 2004.

Since his confirmation in March 2004 as HUD secretary, Jackson's reign of terror was immediately instituted against the poor and he became notorious when he started to promote massive budget cuts in public housing, the Section 8 voucher program, and other housing assistance programs for the elderly and disabled. As HUD secretary, Jackson positioned himself as the enemy of the poor in America.

In a debacle during May 2004, Jackson made headlines when he claimed that “being poor is a state of mind, not a condition," while trying to justify even more budget cuts to the nations housing assistance programs during a congressional hearing.

It was during April of 2004, that Jackson was involved in changing the Section 8 program from a voucher based program, to a budget based program, which resulted in major budget shortfalls to the Section 8 program and a loss of over 250,000 housing vouchers that were in use all over the country at the time, creating much homelessness as a result. Secretary Jackson even pushed for more funding cuts to the Section 8 voucher program that would have resulted in the loss of 600,000 housing vouchers by 2009.

The disaster to the nation's housing assistance programs has been ruthless, on-going and has hurt millions of people since Jackson was confirmed as HUD secretary. Jackson personally spearheaded efforts to demolish public housing units in major cities including Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Charlotte, in the name of creating mixed income housing developments that continue to displace tens of thousands of the poor, elderly and disabled from their housing and communities.

Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner, Eleanor Walden is very alarmed with the attacks by Jackson on the nation's housing assistance programs, including the latest attacks against rent control by greedy landlords in California, and has been telling everyone she can to register to vote, so that they can vote for Proposition 99 to save rent control, during the upcoming June ballot.

"I think that HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson is a traitor to his race and an Uncle Tom," said Commissioner Walden. "He did not have the integrity to stand up and protect the most abused or the elderly, disabled and the poor in the nation's housing assistance programs, and his departure from office is way past due. Between Jackson and the apartment owners of California who are trying to kill rent control and end affordable housing, we are in deep trouble. People need to vote for Proposition 99 to save rent control, or many thousands more will soon be evicted and forced out of their communities throughout California."

The FBI, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development Inspector General continue to investigate allegations of corruption in HUD. Under investigation, are the close ties between a building contractor and HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, because the contractor accepted around $485,000 in payment after Jackson pushed to have the man hired as a post-Katrina construction manager for public housing properties in New Orleans. As the investigation continues to unfold, it turned out that the contractor is a close golfing buddy of HUD Secretary Jackson.

The golfing buddy and close friend of Jackson, named William Hairston (a stucco contractor), accepted around $485,000 in federal dollars during an 18-month period while working for the housing authority in New Orleans under a non-competitive bid as a consultant and sub-contractor, allegedly due in part to Jackson's involvement in the hiring scheme.

Among the issues pertaining to ethics and cronyism that brought down HUD Secretary Jackson, the current investigation seems to be focused on whether congress was misled when Jackson testified that he does not touch contracts during a congressional inquiry in May of 2006, while Jackson was then under a different investigation at that point for favoring HUD contracts to Bush supporters.

Lynda Carson may be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com