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[T] People v. Ventura5/6/2004
llegal boarding houses entirely.
Department of Social Services employees say that they have entirely fulfilled their responsibilities. They were proud that on their record "every qualified person who needs emergency housing is placed." The Housing Unit realizes that its placements are sometimes in too overcrowded or uncomfortable places, but rationalize that some shelter is better than none at all. The illegal nature of the placement selected, they claim, is a "Town, City or Village enforcement problem" for which they bear no responsibility.
Clearly, the shelter supplied through these houses to individuals and families seeking emergency placement by Department of Social Services leaves much to be desired.
Serious questions are raised concerning both the Department of Social Services subsidy of grossly inadequate and illegal housing and its failure to provide any apparatus to assist local authorities to insure health and safety codes are met.
Clearly, the various levels of government are working in conflict. Public monies should not be spent to subvert public statutes. While the Nassau County Department of Social Services is under immense pressure both legal (from Federal and State judges and officials), as well as personal (from the daily crises of the Department of Social Services clients themselves), to use any available shelter for Department of Social Services clients, bureaucratic responses, however seemingly practical, are not a substitute for fulfillment of the law.
It is incumbent upon our elected officials to insure that housing subsidized by government funds meet minimum health and safety standards.
The County Executive, in conjunction with representatives from the various municipalities, should meet to face this difficult problem and to insure that the Nassau County Department of Social Services does not become a knowing accomplice in the destruction of neighborhood standards.
We recommend that the Commissioner of Accounts, pursuant to Nassau County Charter Section 206, conduct an examination in the best interest of the County on the accounts, methods and activities of the Department of Social Services and report his findings to the County Executive, with a view to comprehensive, top-level action that will eliminate the current situation in which County government, through its Social Services Department, promotes and subsidizes sub-standard, illegal and unsafe housing conditions for our poor and homeless. The Commissioner of Accounts should also act to insure that the Department of Social Services complies with all applicable local statutes and, furthermore, the Commissioner of Accounts should examine the procedures of the Department of Social Services with respect to the compilation and use of its brokers list to preclude even the appearance of favoritism and to support evenhandedness. Finally, we recommend that the County Comptroller audit payments to landlords for emergency placement to insure that the County is aware of where its tax money is actually going and to see that the County is not misled into believing that it is paying for housing at one location, when in fact the landlord has unilaterally moved the tenants to another location without County knowledge or agreement.
This Report contains well documented data to support all of its claims. The Report has attached to it the names of brokers alleged to have aided and abetted or who were aided and abetted by the Department of Social Services in profiting by providing sub-standard accommodations to the poor at taxpayer expense. One of these brokers, a leading slumlord in Nassau County gave an address within the Incorporated Village of Westbury w
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