Building on Broken Promises

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A Broken Promise

Companies owned by developer and former D.C. council member H.R. Crawford has received millions of public dollars in recent years to build and renovate housing complexes. The projects have been marred by delays and controversy. Crawford blames funding gaps, environmental problems and other challenges for the delays.

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Despite complaints from some homeowners and tenants, HUD failed to intervene while city housing officials continued to award Crawford grants, loans and bond money for other developments. Much of the money came from the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, which twice bailed Crawford out of troubled projects by providing millions of dollars to new developers who repaid his old debts and bought Crawford's properties for millions more than he had paid.

Years later, much of the city's money has been spent and more than 500 tenants have been forced from rental apartments to make way for the new projects.

"There's nothing but dirt," said Michelle Giles, a home health aide who was one of dozens of tenants who left Trenton Terrace Apartments in Southeast Washington after Crawford received city money in 2001 to buy and begin redeveloping the complex. After taking on a partner, the complex has been torn down but no homes have been built on the rubble-strewn lot.

"It just looks like they wiped our whole life history off the face of the earth," Giles said.

Crawford, 68, said he has long been the "go-to guy" when communities want to overhaul troubled housing complexes. One of the District's first major African American property managers and real-estate developers, he said he took on the redevelopment of rundown, crime-ridden buildings often at the request of city officials or tenants.

Inner-city development is challenging, Crawford said, with developers taking on all of the up-front risk with no guarantee of a profit. He said he launched his projects in neighborhoods that were "under siege" from gangs and crime.

"I have tried to make these projects places where families would be proud to live," he said.

A spokeswoman from the city's housing and community development agency defended Crawford's projects, saying his expenses were legitimate. "The objective of each project was to preserve or create affordable housing opportunities. . . . The project costs associated with these projects were eligible costs," Najuma Thorpe said in a brief written response to questions.

But HUD officials say they have launched an investigation into the stalled projects because in many cases the city used federal money to fund them.

After being contacted by The Post, HUD officials said they discovered that the city provided "materially inaccurate" information to the federal government in June by reporting that one of Crawford's delayed projects, vacant for three years, was completed and occupied by low-income families.

"We find this deeply troubling," HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan said. "It calls into question the accuracy of any data that the city is reporting to us."

Thorpe disputed HUD's account, saying the city reported the project was complete because, among other things, the HUD money had been repaid.