LPSO look at housing assistance program yields no criminal charges

A sheriff’s office investigation into Lafourche Parish Government’s management of housing rehabilitation funds has concluded with no criminal charges filed.

The sheriff’s office, at the request of parish government, reviewed whether a contractor for the federally funded, state-administered and parish-managed program received public and private money for duplicated work. One of the housing grant recipients paid $5,000 out of pocket for supplementary construction, according to the case synopsis obtained by the Tri-Parish Times.

The contractor in question submitted an invoice to the sheriff’s office that showed the revenues as segregated.

“All of the labor and materials recorded on the invoice supplied by the contractor, were in addition to the original work performed under the parish contractor,” wrote Detective Barry Hebert, the investigating deputy. “There was no duplication of work, payment, or misdirection of funds.”

Lafourche Parish Government asked for the review after receiving a complaint from a parish resident, according to Joni Tuck, director of Community Services. The parish also wanted to investigate whether any parish employees were involved in any illegal activity, Hebert wrote.

The contractor told Hebert the work was done after normal working hours and it did not influence the previously contracted work, Hebert said.

“There is no evidence to indicate that any illegal activity took place in this incident, nor that any parish employee was involved in any way that would constitute a violation of policy, a conflict of interest or a violation of criminal law,” Hebert wrote.

The investigation launched on May 28 in the wake of $151,000 in funding meant for needy Lafourche residents being revoked by a state agency.

Lafourche in 2010 received $500,000 in Housing and Urban Development funds to rehabilitate roughly 20 homes owned by low-income residents.

The grant was slated to last two years, but the parish received a one-year extension. In May, the Louisiana Housing Corporation, which managed the federal funds, pulled the plug on Lafourche’s program, citing repeated parish delays in administering the funds when withdrawing the unspent balance.

The grant targeted homeowners living at or below 80 percent of the median area income. The program was designed to bring lackluster quarters up to federal standards concerning wiring, heating and air conditioning systems, roofing, flooring and other elements.

Ultimately, 14 homes were rehabilitated through the program.

Eight Lafourche homeowners who would have received the aid were left out via the lost funds. Some had been promised the improvements, and at least one had met the contractor scheduled to do the work.

LHC cited Lafourche’s repeated tardiness in completing necessary tasks to secure funding for specific homeowners, who had to be vetted.

Joni Tuck, current director of Community Services and the last of three parish managers of the housing rehabilitation program, blamed the delays on her predecessor Freddia Ruffin-Roberson, who was fired in 2012. When Tuck inherited Ruffin-Roberson’s work, the program was disorganized and lacked an unbiased system to select and approve applicants.

Ruffin-Roberson, now a clerk for the parish council’s internal auditor, took credit for navigating the 14 completed homes through the application process and said the work would have been completed had she not been fired. She said Tuck did not understand how to run Community Action programs when she was hired.

In response to a public records request over the summer, Lafourche Parish cited the ongoing investigation when it withheld some records, including internal emails, regarding the program.