The city paid hotels nearly $200,000 to house dozens of AIDS patients – even though they were dead, some for as long as two years, a bombshell audit revealed yesterday.
City Comptroller William Thompson’s office found that the Human Resources Administration paid $182,391 to a dozen single-room occupancy hotels for 26 individuals with HIV/AIDS.
One problem: Those AIDS victims didn’t need the rooms because they were dead.
“The worst offender was one [SRO hotel that] continued to bill HRA for three deceased individuals from a year and a half to two years after their deaths,” the audit said.
The names of the SROs that were ripping off the city were not included in Thompson’s lengthy report. His office yesterday refused a request from The Post to provide the names.
Overall, the comptroller said, $2.2 million in questionable or improper payments, from 2002 to 2004, were made by HRA under the city’s emergency AIDS-housing program.
Thompson demanded that the welfare agency immediately begin efforts to get back at least some of the money.
Paying for lodging for deceased tenants wasn’t the only problem.
HRA shelled out nearly a half-million dollars to housing providers for 196 people who had already moved out of SROs – and some had been gone as long as six months, the audit said.
The report also cited $417,463 in payments to landlords for individuals not listed in HRA’s database, which tracks individuals eligible to receive assistance.
The agency blew another $118,185 through duplicate billings.
The audit also said HRA paid $1 million to landlords even though there was no evidence provided of tenants signing logs indicating they were present.
HRA defended the discrepancy because in some cases, the HIV tenants were too ill to sign forms indicating they were staying at an SRO or had been hospitalized.
HRA said it plans to implement a card-swiping system to better track HIV/AIDS tenants.
Thompson charged that HRA circumvented contracting rules by issuing vouchers to SRO landlords.
HRA disagreed, saying scant emergency housing for homeless people with AIDS warranted the action, which was OK’d by the city’s law department.
HRA disputed many of Thompson’s findings and said it was awaiting more details before deciding what action to take.
Meanwhile, Thompson’s investigators also visited 91 units and found that a quarter of them were filthy, with mice, roaches, bed bugs, peeling paint, leaking faucets, moldy ceilings and walls, and broken tiles.
HRA said it stopped sending AIDS clients to unsanitary facilities, and threatened to close them down.
Thompson also recommended that HRA contact the Department of Investigation to investigate the three vendors he accused of ripping off the agency.
In a letter to the comptroller, HRA Commissioner Verna Eggleston agreed to tighten up HRA’s record-keeping to stop the payments for dead tenants, and said she contacted DOI to probe the most egregious vendors.
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What a waste
The city throws away AIDS money:
– $182,391 to single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels to house 26 people with AIDS, even though they’d been dead up to two years.
– $1 million to SROs without evidence that residents were present.
– $456,292 to SROs after 196 residents already checked out.
– $417,463 to house individuals not found in HRA’s database.
– $118,185 in duplicate payments to vendors.
Source: City Comptroller William Thompson’s audit