Hillsborough: Housing program failed to help

TAMPA -- Public housing residents Gussie Livingston and Thomas Mitchell were supposed to be the beneficiaries of an innovative jobs program launched in the mid 1990s by the Tampa Housing Authority's award-winning boss, Audley Evans.

The idea was to renovate public housing while providing critically needed training and jobs to public housing residents. The mission was to be accomplished with joint ventures in which fledgling companies run by housing residents would be married to established contractors.

The hope was that public housing residents would do much of the federally funded rehab work and, ultimately, gain financial independence.

It didn't work out that way, at least not for Livingston and Mitchell, who shared in some of the most lucrative joint-venture contracts at the THA.

Livingston, 54, who still lives in a home sold to her by the housing authority, is in bankruptcy. She owes $469,000 to the IRS for taxes and interest during the period she was involved in five joint-venture companies.

Livingston also was indicted on federal charges of mail fraud in a scheme to file phony automobile glass insurance claims worth thousands of dollars through her niece, an insurance claim processor who is a co-defendant in the case.

Mitchell, 50, was arrested on worthless check charges and found guilty of solicitation to deliver cocaine after participating in several joint-venture contracts at the housing authority. Mitchell now lives in Alabama, where he builds office furniture.

Livingston and Mitchell both testified last week in Evans' federal trial. Evans is charged in a conspiracy to hand out housing authority contracts to associates in return for nearly $300,000 in kickbacks. The trial continues today with closing arguments.

The Inspector General's Office for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was the first to blow the whistle on problems with the joint-venture contracts.

In an April 1998 audit that denounced management of the housing authority during Evans' tenure, the inspector general noted that $27-million in joint-venture contracts provided "limited financial benefits to relatively few residents." Just 33 of 4,400 households got any benefit from the contracts, the audit said, and there was "no lasting impact" in terms of construction training.

Livingston's income history highlights that finding. Under joint-venture contracts, she earned more than $330,000 annually in 1995 and 1996. Without them, her income in 1998 and 1999 averaged $16,800 a year, according to bankruptcy records.

Alerted by auditors to abuses in the joint-venture and other programs, federal prosecutors convened a grand jury in 1998. Indictments last April alleged wholesale corruption in the joint-venture program, suspended at the Tampa Housing Authority when the audit report was released.

Livingston, though advised by her attorney not to testify at the Evans trial, told jurors last week that she participated in joint-venture contracts with companies run by Orlando contractor Bill Williams Jr.

Williams, who has three federal fraud convictions, has already pleaded guilty to bribery in this case and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. He testified that he paid 14 bribes totaling nearly $79,000 to Evans in return for favorable treatment at the Tampa Housing Authority.

Mitchell, through his Goshen Maintenance Co., also participated in joint-venture projects involving Williams. Mitchell testified that he got $9,000 from a $79,050 change order on a sod and seed contract awarded to Williams' Unique Construction Co.

But Williams' company did no work for that $79,050 order, which was approved by Evans, according to testimony by Angelo DePaul, the housing authority's former development director.

The order's authorization constitutes one of the charges against Evans of making false statements to a government agency.

Another such charge arises from the government's contention that Evans signed a $140,000 sod contract for Mitchell's Goshen Maintenance in September 1995, even though Mitchell was ineligible because he was not a housing authority resident. Instead, prosecutors say, Mitchell was living in a 142nd Avenue duplex he rented from Evans.

Defense attorneys tried to rebut that accusation with utility records showing Mitchell did live in public housing at the time of the contract.

Prosecutor Robert O'Neill then called his own rebuttal witness, Mitchell's parole officer, who said Mitchell stated he had indeed been residing at Evans' 142nd Avenue duplex in September 1995.

- Jeff Testerman can be reached at (813) 226-3422 or testerman@sptimes.com.