Housing focus of Senate hearing
GMF trouble spurs look at HUD oversight
One participated in the Senate hearing and the other came to watch, but both Memphis representatives, Sen. Bob Corker and Rep. Steve Cohen, called for better oversight of federally subsidized housing properties on Thursday.
The session was held in part because of the poor condition of apartments in Memphis and Jacksonville, Florida, both owned by Memphis-based Global Ministries Foundation.
The Senate held the hearing on the oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) inspection process.
“Thank you so much for bringing this to the nation’s attention and hopefully helping us provide a much better solution for oversight,’’ Corker, R-Tennessee, told fellow senators Marco Rubio, RFlorida, and Bill Nelson, D-Florida. “Some of these landlords, some of them are obviously good, but so many of them are just total absentee and have no regard for the people who live in these various facilities. Obviously, that has to change.”
HUD has stopped federal rent subsidies at Global Ministries Foundation’s Warren and Tulane properties in Memphis, and a U.S. District Court has removed the faith-based organization’s control of the apartments.
Cohen, D-Memphis, introduced what he described as “the bipartisan Housing Accountability Act’’ to require HUD to survey tenants living in subsidized housing two times a year about property conditions and management performance. The bill also would create new penalties for property owners who repeatedly
Shelby County Criminal Court Judge James Beasley on Friday deferred sentencing of Bartlett police officer Lucas Hines for six months for reckless driving in a 2014 fatal crash.
If Hines successfully completes diversion, Beasley said he will dismiss the case and it will be removed from the officer’s record. He said there is sometimes more to punishment and consequences than putting a person in jail.
“I believe that Mr. Hines is going to live with this for the rest of his life,” Beasley said.
Prosecutors sought the maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine, while Hines’ attorney asked the judge to place him on diversion.
A jury in August found Hines guilty of reckless driving in the Oct. 12, 2014, crash at Stage Road and Bartlett Boulevard in which 49-year-old Michelle Sloyan and her friend, 63-year-old Danny Floyd, died. Hines had been charged with vehicular homicide, but the jury found him guilty of only the lesser misdemeanor offense.
Assistant District Attorney Billy Bond asked for the maximum sentence Friday, calling the case “egregious” and arguing that two people died as a result of Hines’ reckless driving. Bond said the officer was in violation of multiple policies, and that