‘Zo Jackson’s Got His Homey’s “Back”

It’s been awhile since I’ve had an opportunity to take a shot at one of this administra- tion’s flunkies, but, life under George W. Milhous Bush being what it is, you just knew an opportunity would present itself. And so it apparently has.

It seems that HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has been accused by the Philadelphia Housing Authority of ordering the city to turn over $2 million to “a politically connected developer,” and then refusing to turn over millions of dollars in additional federal aid to PHA after Jackson’s directive was refused.

And as reported in this New York Times story by David Kocieniewski, that friend of Jackson’s is Philadelphia soul songwriter and producer Kenny Gamble; he and partner Leon Huff formed the Philadelphia International recording label in 1971 (noted here) and churned out a bunch of hits with The O’Jays (“Back Stabbers,” “Love Train”), Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (“If You Don’t Know Me By Now”) and Billy Paul (“Me And Mrs. Jones”), among other artists. Subsequent to that, Gamble formed University Community Homes, which was awarded the contract for the redevelopment of the Martin Luther King, Jr. projects.

(By the way, if you want a chuckle, get a load of this PHA press release trumpeting the projects. I mean, I hope things are working out reasonably well for the people living there and I wish them the best, but how covering almost every conceivable speck of land with concrete, save for a token tree here or there, to build living space and a garage at the expense of any other greenery whatsoever can be considered “environmental friendliness” defies any logical conception to me.)

This story was also reported previously by the Washington Post and the Inquirer provides more information here, but here’s the thing: Jackson wants the money for the redevelopment of the MLK Jr. projects to go to Gamble’s company, Universal Community Homes. And you could just chalk this up to another example of Bushco’s cozy cronyism at work, except for the fact that Gamble hasn’t been able to follow through on the work.

As the Times story tells us…

Only 80 units (of 236 contracted in 1999) were built when Universal’s partner withdrew from the project, forcing the authority to help with the rest of the construction...(so Carl R. Greene, PHA’s executive director) turned down its request for the $2 million parcel of land, where the company intended to build 19 homes at full market rates.

And…

As the city housing authority rebuffed Mr. Gamble’s effort to get control of the property, it was also in a dispute with housing officials in Washington about whether Philadelphia had failed to meet a federal requirement that 5 percent of its public housing be made accessible for the disabled.

In the lawsuit, Philadelphia officials said that they had exceeded that by 1 percent and provided detailed studies by experts who contend that federal housing inspectors had undercounted the city’s efforts. Mr. Greene’s affidavit stated that he and other Philadelphia housing officials had repeatedly urged federal officials to reconsider, even traveling to Washington last summer to make the case in person. But in his affidavit, Mr. Greene said that Mr. Jackson’s deputies told him that Philadelphia would get credit for its efforts to provide housing for the disabled — and qualify for millions of dollars in federal aid — only if the city agreed to transfer the property to Mr. Gamble.

And just for the record, the Inquirer story by Mark Fazollah and Craig McCoy notes the following…

While most of his contributions went to Democrats, (Gamble) also gave to some Republicans, including Sen. Arlen Specter, former Sen. Rick Santorum, and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

And regarding those 19 full-market-rate homes Gamble wanted (trying to capitalize on the market boom in real estate at that time)…

In 2006, Greene told Universal it would not be getting the land. Greene said yesterday that Universal failed to hold up its end of the deal and deliver the social services it promised, such as jobs and school counseling.

According to Greene, Gamble was confident that he would prevail. He said Gamble told him as they left a June 2006 meeting with (former mayor John) Street in City Hall that he did not need to hire a lawyer to fight PHA.

"He said he didn't need any lawyers because he had friends - and Alphonso Jackson is his friend," Greene said.

Well, this really is “par for the course” isn’t it with Jackson, just another example of rewarding a pal as he did here with allowing a housing project in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans to be executed by his Hilton Head, S.C. golf buddy (and as noted here, Jackson professed to apologize for stating in a public speech about how he kills government contracts if the owners of the companies in question don't support President Bush.)

And I don’t see where you can question the PHA on this one, since it sounds like they’re being squeezed by Jackson. And also, though I understand Gamble for trying to curry favor from people of influence, he should have called off his little power play when he should have realized (maybe he did) that he was hurting the redevelopment effort and affecting people’s lives.

And after reading about this, I should add that I’ll have a whole new take on one of Gamble’s hits, “For The Love Of Money,” the next time I hear it on the oldies station.

Update 2/20/08: And I'm sure this is doing wonders for HUD employee morale also (h/t Atrios).