Officials: Paterson housing representative failed to report income in getting rent voucher

PATERSON — The newly appointed tenant representative on the Paterson Housing Authority owes the agency about $18,000 for not reporting all her family’s income on her application for a federal rent voucher, officials said.

By not disclosing her household’s full income, housing authority commissioner Carmen Rivera received more federal rent assistance than she was entitled to get, officials said.

Rivera must repay almost $13,000 of that debt by Nov. 3 or she would be in danger of losing the federal Section 8 voucher she uses toward her rent at the rebuilt Riverside Village complex, said Irma Gorham, the executive director of the Paterson Housing Authority.

Failure to pay her back rent by that deadline also could affect Rivera’s status as the tenant representative on the citywide housing authority’s governing body, Gorham said.

Rivera, who officials say has lived at Riverside Village since it reopened after being rebuilt in 2021, could not be reached for comment.

Gorham said the housing authority and Rivera entered a repayment agreement in early October. The director said she would not make public a copy of that document because of confidentiality provisions pertaining to the personal finances of housing authority clients.

“She’s not denying that there’s unreported income,” Gorham said.

A power play?

Rivera’s appointment as a housing commissioner at the City Council’s last meeting in June set off speculation among detractors of Mayor Andre Sayegh that she was put on the authority’s board to tip the balance of power. The agency was in the process of picking a replacement for Gorham, who plans to retire, and multiple commissioners said there were behind-the-scenes disputes about the merits of various applicants for the director’s job.

The tenant seat on the housing authority had been vacant for more than seven years before Rivera was appointed to it, officials said. The council had not voted during that time on other tenants whom the housing authority nominated for the seat, officials said.

Rivera was not nominated for the seat by the housing authority, officials said, and instead was picked by the council. The council in June added the resolution appointing Rivera to its agenda at the last minute, and Gorham said the council had not vetted the tenant appointee with the housing authority.

“The City Council just rushed this through because they were trying to stack the board,” said activist Ernest Rucker.

Two weeks after Rivera’s appointment, Councilman Michael Jackson contacted Gorham, asserting that the new housing commissioner’s income was greater than what she had reported to the agency in her application for a rent voucher. Gorham said she would investigate Jackson’s allegations, a probe that led to the repayment agreement.

“What they’re doing is a blatant effort to cover up fraud,” Jackson said. “She should be ineligible to hold that position,” he added, referring to Rivera’s housing authority seat.

Earlier in 2023: Paterson Housing Authority suspends ‘compromised’ search for new director

Board members say they hadn't heard about repayment agreement

Because of the investigation, officials at the housing authority said they waited until September before administering the oath of office to allow Rivera to join the board.

Bob Guarasci, a member of the housing authority, said he first learned of Rivera’s repayment agreement over this past weekend when the commission’s chairperson, Paula Alford, contacted him about it.

“The board has not received any formal notification of how this was dealt with or resolved,” Guarasci said of the allegations about Rivera’s income.

Alford said she has not seen the repayment agreement and referred a reporter to Gorham.

Another housing commissioner, Flavio Rivera, said the board does not have any say in how the agency handles repayment plans.

Gorham said it has been common for the housing agency to come across discrepancies involving its tenant income. In 2003, Gorham said, the agency contacted the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office about some cases of questionable income information that tenants put on their voucher applications.

Gorham said the Prosecutor’s Office told housing officials that it had more important cases to handle, so the authority began using repayment agreements to force its tenants to make good on rent they owed when such discrepancies arose.

Meanwhile, Alford in July suspended the housing authority’s search for Gorham’s replacement, saying the process had been “compromised” amid the controversy over Rivera’s appointment. The housing commissioners are scheduled to hire a new search firm next month and hope to pick Gorham’s replacement before the end of this year, Alford said.

Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson NJ housing official left out rent voucher income, agency says