New York sues three Russian-speaking women because of affordable housing scam

The scam was turned by three Russian-speaking women who were responsible for selecting applications for the purchase of apartments under the affordable housing program. They received bribes worth almost $ 900 thousand from people who wanted to get housing out of turn. This publication writes Daily News.

About the program

The government program Mitchell-Lama was developed in the 1950s. Its goal is to provide affordable housing for middle-income families not only in New York City but throughout the country. This program is financed from the federal budget.

According to the new lawsuit, candidates for the affordable housing program were regularly deleted from the waiting list in favor of candidates with good connections and finances. Thus, the applicants, who should have rightfully received housing, were left out of work.

Under the program, potential tenants and members of cooperatives have the right to rent or buy an apartment if their income is within the established limits and the number of people meets the requirements for the occupied apartment.

After submitting an application and paying a fee, people who are looking for an apartment are entered on the waiting list or selected in the lottery process.

All decide communications

However, at least four applicants selected for housing were not notified. Instead, their apartments were transferred to someone else. According to the lawsuit, the apartments were received by people who have connections with those who make decisions in this matter.

The City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is accused of ignoring such offenses.

“This is widespread corruption in the department (HPD - Ed.),” Said Dennis Kelly, an attorney for four housing applicants who filed a class action lawsuit against the city. "We think this is deliberate mismanagement of the list."

The lawsuit filed in the Brooklyn Federal Court states that the city and the department were "intentionally indifferent from at least 2009, if not earlier."

Plaintiffs include Mount Vernon resident Kinetta Berry, who was on the waiting list for the two-room Adee Tower Apartments in the Bronx. However, she was removed from the list without notice. The reason for this was that she did not answer the question about the available space.

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In another project, Queens's Boulevard Towers, the names of only five of the 20 most recent residents appeared on the list of applicants for affordable housing.

The managing agent assured that the applicants who received the apartments “brought a letter stating that their names were on the previous waiting list”. But, according to court documents, he was unable to submit any of these previous lists.

In other cases, the deadlines for filing applications were interrupted, which is a serious problem, since the date “establishes the selection procedure” for applicants for apartments.

In some cases, the department even ignored its own audits, revealing problems in the selection process.

An HPD spokeswoman did not immediately comment on this.

About swindlers

Last year, several Coney Island housing officials were arrested and charged with receiving $ 874 thousands in bribes. For this amount, they helped those who were willing to pay well to get the desired housing under the Mitchell-Lama program.

The accused are Anna Treibich, Irina Zeltser and Karina Andriyan. The women used the money received from the sale of apartments in the Luna Park Housing Corp. funds for a luxurious lifestyle. In particular, the swindlers bought expensive real estate in Florida, as well as collections of high-quality fur coats, designer bags and jewelry.

The three were charged with 78 counts of conspiracy, large-scale embezzlement, bribery and other crimes since 2013.