BHA: Housing inspections and fraud compliance reports
| Submitted | March 30, 2017 |
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Communications
From: Caitlin Russell
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, M.G.L. c.66, §10, I hereby request the following records:
-All 2016 housing inspection reports for all Housing Choice Voucher Program apartments
-All 2016 fraud compliance reports
I also request that, if appropriate, fees be waived as we believe this request is in the public interest, as suggested but not stipulated by the recommendations of the Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records. The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, processed by a representative of the news media/press and is made in the process of news gathering and not for commercial usage.
I expect the request to be filled in an accessible format, including for screen readers, which provide text-to-speech for persons unable to read print. Files that are not accessible to screen readers include, for example, .pdf image files as well as physical documents.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Caitlin Russell
From: Agro, Lydia
Hi Caitlin:
Can you please call me about this request? I need to discuss with you but there is no phone number attached to the request.
Best,
Lydia
Lydia Agro
Chief of Staff
Boston Housing Authority
52 Chauncy Street, Boston MA 02111
617-988-4109
Lydia_agro@bostonhousing.org<mailto:Lydia_agro@bostonhousing.org>
www.bostonhousing.org<http://www.bostonhousing.org/>
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image001
From: Agro, Lydia
Hi Caitlin:
Sorry we were unable to connect via phone yesterday due to the bad connection. I wanted to just follow up via email so we are clear as to how to move forward with your request.
Our 2016 Housing Inspection Reports for our Housing Choice Voucher program apartments are manual reports that contain confidential information. For that year, we estimate that we have between 35,000-45,000 reports. We would have to manually redact the confidential information on the reports in order to provide them to you and would not be able to do this within 10 days or without charging you as it would require substantial staff time to do this work. We do have some higher level electronic information for inspections for 2016 that would provide total number of inspections, how many inspections passed, how many did not, etc. but would not include the specific violations. Would you prefer us to provide you with that report instead or would you prefer us to send you a cost estimate for the provision of the manual reports and redaction of confidential information, as well as time frame, in order to provide you with the manual reports?
In addition, we do not have fraud compliance reports. We do receive fraud complaints, we do investigate them and take action when appropriate. Can you clarify what exactly you are looking for as far as the fraud compliance goes?
These are the questions I called you about but in the interest of time, decided to email you since we did not connect. Please keep everyone on the chain as I may not be the only person working on this request.
Best,
Lydia
Lydia Agro
Chief of Staff
Boston Housing Authority
52 Chauncy Street, Boston MA 02111
617-988-4109
Lydia_agro@bostonhousing.org<mailto:Lydia_agro@bostonhousing.org>
www.bostonhousing.org<http://www.bostonhousing.org/>
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image001
From: Agro, Lydia
Hi Caitlin:
Sorry we were unable to connect via phone yesterday due to the bad connection. I wanted to just follow up via email so we are clear as to how to move forward with your request.
Our 2016 Housing Inspection Reports for our Housing Choice Voucher program apartments are manual reports that contain confidential information. For that year, we estimate that we have between 35,000-45,000 reports. We would have to manually redact the confidential information on the reports in order to provide them to you and would not be able to do this within 10 days or without charging you as it would require substantial staff time to do this work. We do have some higher level electronic information for inspections for 2016 that would provide total number of inspections, how many inspections passed, how many did not, etc. but would not include the specific violations. Would you prefer us to provide you with that report instead or would you prefer us to send you a cost estimate for the provision of the manual reports and redaction of confidential information, as well as time frame, in order to provide you with the manual reports?
In addition, we do not have fraud compliance reports. We do receive fraud complaints, we do investigate them and take action when appropriate. Can you clarify what exactly you are looking for as far as the fraud compliance goes?
These are the questions I called you about but in the interest of time, decided to email you since we did not connect. Please keep everyone on the chain as I may not be the only person working on this request.
Best,
Lydia
Lydia Agro
Chief of Staff
Boston Housing Authority
52 Chauncy Street, Boston MA 02111
617-988-4109
Lydia_agro@bostonhousing.org<mailto:Lydia_agro@bostonhousing.org>
www.bostonhousing.org<http://www.bostonhousing.org/>
-
image001
From: Boston Housing Authority
A letter stating the requester must agree to or prepay assessed or estimated fees in order for the agency to continue processing the request.
From: Roy, Laurie
Please see the attached letter.
Thank you,
Laurie
Laurie Roy
Paralegal/Records Access Officer
Boston Housing Authority
52 Chauncy St. - 10th Floor Legal Department
Boston, MA 02111
Tel: (617) 988-4501(direct)
Fax: (617) 988-4278
----------------
This e-mail and any attachment or file transmitted with it may contain privileged and confidential information for the use of the intended addressee only. The confidentiality and/or privilege in this e-mail is not waived, lost or destroyed if it has been transmitted to you in error. If you have received this e-mail in error, you must (1) not distribute copy or take any action in reliance on it as any action related to this e-mail or attachment is strictly prohibited, and may be unlawful; (2) please notify the sender by return e-mail; and (3) delete the original e-mail.
The Boston Housing Authority, its subsidiaries and/or its employees shall not be liable for the incorrect or incomplete transmission of this e-mail or any attachments, nor responsible for any delay in receipt.
From: Caitlin Russell
Hello,
You mentioned that you can provide me with a report detailing how many apartments passed inspections and how many failed. Would it be possible to send those records over?
From: Agro, Lydia
Hi Caitlin:
This is in response to your below request to Laurie Roy as well as to the question that you asked me regarding how we estimated the number of inspection reports for 2016 during our phone conversation on May 4, 2017.
Of the inspections BHA conducted in 2016, 16,473 resulted in approvals or “passed” inspection and 11,705 “failed” or did not pass inspection.
The BHA estimated the total number of inspection records to be between 35,000-45,000 for 2016 based on the following; we manage subsidy for approximately 14,200 vouchers (including Tenant-Based Section 8, Project-Based Section 8, Moderate Rehabilitation units). All units are inspected annually and most have at least 1 code violation annually so 14,200x2=28,400. There are anywhere from 1,000-2,000 relocations per year that typically result in the need for 1-2 inspections each which on the high side adds another 4,000. Factor in tenant complaints, resume payment inspections, landlord requests, city requests, residents who are not at home at the time of entry or do not allow entry and the follow up inspections for each of those. Some units require more than 2 inspections. All together, these inspections result in approximately 40,000 inspection reports/attempts. Not all inspection types result in a pass/fail outcome, thus the total of pass/fail inspections above at 28,178 is a count of only inspections that resulted in pass/fail, not a count of all inspections/inspection attempts and therefore, the total number of inspection reports exceeds that number. After your most recent request, we confirmed that we have a total of 40,544 reports entered in our system for calendar year 2016.
Best,
Lydia
Lydia Agro
Chief of Staff
Boston Housing Authority
52 Chauncy Street, Boston MA 02111
617-988-4109
Lydia_agro@bostonhousing.org<mailto:Lydia_agro@bostonhousing.org>
www.bostonhousing.org<http://www.bostonhousing.org/>
From: Roy, Laurie
Hi Caitlin:
Just a follow up on your question in regards to the number of vouchers in Boston. The current number as of 5/10/17 is as follows:
Number of units under lease as of 5/10/17 -13,476
Number of those units that are leased in Boston-10,223
FYI- Boston includes the following:
Allston
Boston
Brighton
Charlestown
East Boston
Hyde Park
Jamaica Plain
Mattapan
Roslindale
Roxbury
South Boston
West Roxbury
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Have a great day.
Laurie
Laurie Roy
Paralegal/Records Access Officer
Boston Housing Authority
52 Chauncy St. - 10th Floor Legal Department
Boston, MA 02111
Tel: (617) 988-4501(direct)
Fax: (617) 988-4278
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