By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 16, 2008; B06

Alexandria, home to one of the region's most concentrated clusters of public housing, is pressing ahead with plans to redevelop a number of sites that house low-income families amid new controversy over the properties' management.

Residents of the Parker-Gray neighborhood, where much of the city's public housing is located, recently revealed on a community blog that a former city housing official had entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in which he admitted that he had violated HUD policies.

William Dearman, former executive director of the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority, declined to comment on the agreement with HUD, which funds the authority. Dearman resigned last year and has since moved to Georgia.

The agreement was disclosed in a semiannual report by HUD to Congress last year. The report said Dearborn "circumvented procurement regulations" and awarded roofing contracts without competition. The agreement deferred any additional prosecution for 24 months.

Dearman agreed not to seek employment with any HUD-related agency for three years, to perform 50 hours of community service and to reimburse the federal government for the cost of prosecuting him. HUD officials would not comment.

Alexandria city officials said this week that they had not known the extent of the investigation until they learned about the agreement through the Web site, known as the Parker-Gray Growl.

"That was the first we have heard of it," said Mildrilyn Davis, director of the city's housing office, which is separate from the Redevelopment and Housing Authority. She added, however, that the city's relationship with Dearman had not been as "open and collaborative as desired."

Dearman's successor, Roy Priest, a former director of economic development for HUD, who joined the city agency in June, said he did not know Dearman and was unfamiliar with the specifics of the case. He said he was told that Dearman had sought competitive bids for two roofing projects, in keeping with HUD policies, but that the bids were too high. So he found a company that would do the work more cheaply.

"It's a simple matter that he seemingly initially followed HUD's policy," but when the process became cumbersome and time-consuming, Dearman "went ahead and got the work done," Priest said. "The roof got fixed."

Priest said he had found no other sign of any "impropriety" at the Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which manages about 1,120 units of public housing in the city. "I don't see any pattern. . . . It was just one isolated situation," he said.

"I'm not even sure how this even got drawn to HUD's attention," he said.

The Redevelopment and Housing Authority has attracted controversy in the past. In 2005, federal authorities questioned whether authority employees had been giving low-income housing vouchers to their friends. No charges were filed in that case.

The authority has faced much criticism from neighbors, particularly as the city has gentrified and relatively affluent people have been drawn to areas that once sheltered primarily poorer people.

Meanwhile, popular support and federal funding for public housing has withered in recent decades.

"Over the last eight years, funding from HUD to local housing authorities has decreased substantially, while at the same time HUD regulations have made it more difficult to administer public housing at the local level," Davis said.

About a third of the city's public housing is slated for redevelopment. The Glebe Park complex in Arlandria, whose 152 units include 102 that are vacant and deemed beyond repair, will be redeveloped into a complex of 84 public housing units and 18 units for moderate-income or more-affluent residents.

Another plan under consideration would allow the redevelopment of the Braddock East neighborhood, which includes three public housing complexes.

City officials said no residents will lose their housing but some will need to be relocated to public housing elsewhere in the city.

Staff writer Jerry Markon contributed to this report.