For a while now, residents of 2 Mt. Auburn St. in Cambridge felt a little bit in limbo. Their affordable senior housing building, owned by Harvard University, would be sold. But residents wondered if the affordable housing component of the deal would be left intact.
After a long wait, the building, along with 5-11 Putnam Ave., was sold to Homeowner’s Rehab Inc. for $9.3 million. Along with the sale comes what’s billed as a first-of-its-kind deal, at least for the city of Cambridge: HCI will provide services – transportation, home making, wellness programs – tailored to those residents, according to the Cambridge Chronicle.
It also means, according to a letter distributed to residents of the complex, residents will continue to live in affordable housing – for a minimum of 30 years.
It wasn’t an easy path to the deal. Late last month, Cambridge City Councilor Ken Reeves had drafted a policy order that made it clear that nobody knew what Harvard’s intentions were.
“Harvard University has blocked all meaningful communication between the university and the tenants union and blocked all meaningful communication with elected city officials and administrators of the city of Cambridge,” the order stated.
The order asked the city manager to set up a committee “to open up truthful communication with Harvard on their intentions of selling this building.”
Whether or not Reeves had used his political power to force Harvard into a meaningful deal is unclear. But the next week, Harvard announced it struck a deal with HCI.
It all means that residents of the properties can take a little breather.
Fudging The Numbers
About a year ago, the Obama administration’s Mortgage Fraud Working Group announced the results of a startling conclusion to an investigation: 530 people had been arrested for mortgage fraud that cost victims approximately $1 billion in losses. On Aug. 9, Bloomberg reported that the numbers were all wrong, that the FBI had been taking credit for arrests made before the crackdown began in October 2011.
In actuality, criminal charges were filed against 107 defendants nationwide, and these cases involved an estimated 17,185 victims. Total financial losses amounted to $95 million, according to a completely revised press release posted on the FBI’s website (the old press release with the old statistics cannot be found on the site).
In addition, Attorney General Eric Holder’s speech from 2012 had also been altered, as reported by Rolling Stone.
So why the discrepancy? The Department of Justice blames the error on the fact that it was counting more than just the number of those charged in fiscal year 2012; it also included those who were convicted or sentenced.
Regardless, the series of events that uncovered by Bloomberg was yet another piece of evidence that shows government errors in keeping itself in check.
