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THAP was delinquent with taxes
By JEFF TESTERMAN, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- Despite receiving hundreds of thousands of federal dollars to run the Veterans Village shelter for homeless vets, the Tampa-Hillsborough Action Plan failed to pay its county property taxes on the facility for four straight years. THAP, now embroiled in a federal investigation, came close to losing the 12-apartment shelter at 1911 E 137th Ave. when a Fort Lauderdale investor paid all four years of back taxes, then filed to foreclose and take title to the property. The Veterans Village property was set for a foreclosure sale in June 2000 when the investor finally got a check for $9,807.36 to cover back taxes, interest and charges for 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999, according to records in the office of Hillsborough Tax Collector Doug Belden. The money was paid not by THAP but by THAP Homes, a related nonprofit with no relationship to the homeless shelter. "I don't know that that has ever happened before," said Roger Casey, chief of the homeless vets grants program at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa. "Through the grants (THAP) received, they should have maintained control of the site and complied with everything to remain in control of the property." Actually, THAP should never have faced the tax problems in the first place. As a nonprofit agency chartered to provide housing and medical services to low-income residents, THAP was entitled to an exemption from local property taxes. But the company never applied for the tax exemption until the near-foreclosure. Hillsborough Property Appraiser Rob Turner granted THAP an exemption on Veterans Village in 2000 and 2001. "That's not much of a way to run a business," said Deputy Property Appraiser Warren Weathers. "In the world of nonprofits, it's usually common knowledge that these exemptions are available." THAP officials did not return calls from the St. Petersburg Times seeking comment. Casey said the tax matter "may be part of the investigation" by the inspector general's office for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. And thousands of dollars in other unpaid tax bills have officials questioning THAP's ability to handle its finances. Federal investigators began looking into the financing of Veterans Village last fall, after the Times disclosed the dual roles of former THAP boss Chester M. Luney. Until resigning abruptly in October, Luney was an $80,279 VA psychologist who wrote grants that funneled money to THAP, where he was a 20-hour-a-week executive being paid $78,000 a year. According to VA documents and interviews with several Veterans Village residents, Luney falsified federal inspection reports that kept grant dollars flowing to the homeless facility. An inspection at the shelter last year revealed a host of deficiencies, including substandard units, a lack of any counseling services, incomplete resident files and inappropriate funds collected from the vets. Luney also is under investigation by federal investigators for his role in providing numerous favors to former Tampa housing chief Steve LaBrake and LaBrake's fiancee and onetime aide, Lynne McCarter. The favors helped the couple build a 4,200-square-foot South Tampa home now listed for sale for $650,000. With investigators on the trail of tax dollars allocated to THAP, the nonprofit's grant programs have begun to dry up. The VA has suspended $1.2-million in funds meant to house homeless vets in Tampa, Orlando and Palm Bay. The VA has stopped paying the $19-a-day per veteran subsidy at Veterans Village, forcing THAP to end sponsorship of the transitional housing facility. The city of Tampa wants to end its partnership with THAP in the building of single-family homes for low-income persons. The city, guarantor of mortgage loans on several commercial buildings purchased by THAP, is negotiating to take the structures, including the Morgan cigar factory, a warehouse in the Channelside district and an historic school building in Ybor City. Curiously, THAP and its related companies got property tax exemptions on some properties but not on others. An exemption was granted on the cigar factory, an aging Howard Avenue structure THAP intended to renovate to provide low-income apartments. But no exemption was sought on a four-story warehouse on 12th Street in the Channelside area which Luney promised to use as THAP's new headquarters and as office space for other nonprofits. Meanwhile, property tax bills have stacked up. THAP and related companies now owe more than $11,500 in back taxes for 2000 on the commercial properties and a smattering of other land around Hillsborough. The nonprofits are also facing more than $32,500 in 2001 property taxes that will become delinquent on April 1. "It sounds like a poor stewardship of tax dollars," said Weathers, "Especially when they didn't have to be subject to some of those taxes to begin with."
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From the Times Ernest Hooper Sandra Thompson |
