Christian "charity" really slumlords

[Starry Messenger]

Christian "charity" really slumlords

http://www.peoplesworld.org/christian-charity-really-slumlords/

<snip>

According to their website, Global Ministries Fellowship PAC "exists for the purpose of providing affordable housing for low to moderate income residents around the country." The express purpose of their housing ministry is "not only to provide safe, decent, and sanitary housing,"

Seventy-year-old resident John laughs at the idea. "This is Tanzania back here," he says, waving broadly towards the litter-strewn courtyard and wildly overgrown hedges. "Just yesterday we killed a snake outside our door.

<snip>

Anyone walking through Goodwill Village hopes GMF takes better care of the residents spiritually than they do physically. Drifts of garbage stand next to dumpsters overflowing with every manner of refuse rotting in the 95-degree heat. Young men sit on coolers and stacked pallets playing dominos in the shade of water oaks. It is cooler outside than inside, where the air conditioning has yet to be repaired. Other units have box fans crammed into the windows surrounded by blankets and duct taped into place to at least circulate the hot air inside.

<snip>

Even worse for Elma and Miracle is their kitchen sink, which lies gutted and stacked in their front room between their goldfish aquarium and television. Two months ago, when a gas leak was reported, management for Global Ministries Fellowship tore out Elma's sink and disconnected her stove and hot water heater, leaving her home a disaster and a huge hole in her wall. No one has been back since.

[HiPointDem]

1. kr

[LooseWilly]

2. k&r

[HiPointDem]

3. How they got the money to buy it: "tax-exempt housing revenue bonds"

GMF made Friday's purchase using tax-exempt housing revenue bonds issued by the Memphis Health, Educational and Housing Facility Board.

Goodwill Villages is just the latest of a dozen multifamily housing communities GMF has purchased over the past three years.

The organization now has 2,400 apartment units from Indiana to Louisiana.

The 8-year-old evangelistic ministry founded its housing corporation about three years ago.

Goodwill Village residents get rent assistance through the Housing Assistance Payment contract through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Money made from the apartment communities is reinvested to improve the properties and also is used to match contributions made by more than 1,700 donors for the international ministry, Hamlet said.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/jun/18/faith-based-group-adds-second-memphis-apartment-co/?print=1


I smell deep scammin'

[Starry Messenger]

5. You smell correctly.

The properties are basically purchased with tax free vouchers to provide substandard housing to people who probably would have been in public housing when we had such a thing. But that would be socialism, and teh private sector plus tax-exempt religious orgs are The American Way©.

[HiPointDem]

7. so i assume since the property company is of recent origin there was some kind of legal change

that facilitated such things. do you know anything about it?

privatization of public housing? outsourcing to contractors? not clear what's going on.

Here's a comment from one of those sites where people can rate rentals. I gave the link but I wouldn't suggest going to it, I got a script alert from my computer.


This entire apartment complex has been sold to Global Ministries Fellowship (GMF) from Mid America Apartment Communities and is now an "Affordable Housing" property. This is why the Memphis Housing Authority has moved in a great deal of people into these apartments while Mid America Apartment Communities was negotiating the sale. This is also why the crime listings here have gone through the roof and have continued to get even worse. The leasing offices have also allowed the full on tax credit renting to go on here also. This entire property had a skeleton crew for leasing and maintenance the whole time it was for sale. And, there was a low grade (thank goodness) tornado in the area a while back (2009) which really did a lot of damage which no one from Mid America Apartment Communities fixed at all, because they owned the River Trace outright and were basically just collecting pure rents the whole time they had it up for sale and gave up on it.

Multifamily Management, Inc. (MMI) manages it. This is a company based in Alabama which only manages "affordable housing" apartments. They have a PO box and not a bit more because that company got into some legal troubles and had to change their name from Mitchell to Multifamily.

These apartments have been rotting out for a very long while both inside and out. They rarely have running water (and yet charge the resident for it along with their rent) and they refuse to do any monthly pest control (and yet have been known to charge for it along with your monthly rent). People have been moved in here left and right from God knows where with no credit or criminal background checks at all for over three in a half years that I know of.

I have a paid subscription to The Memphis Daily News web site. This property currently has three different liens against it. GMF and MMI need to straighten things out here by now. They have further run this property into the ground and if I did not know any better I would dare say they have done it on purpose so they can sell it to HUD. Please do not move here, and if you do live here, try to move when you can. If they do not do something about their liens before to long, all of you will more than likely be kicked out on the street.

Read more: http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/TN-Memphis-River-Trace-947720.html#ixzz231Tgo0IP

[Starry Messenger]

8. Nope, this is it so far.

I asked the author if they got any tax benefits and he mentioned the purchase vouchers. I thought I'd post it here to see what else came up.

[HiPointDem]

10. interesting. its HQ shares space (same address) with the university of phoenix (same address)

and these concerns:

Addcox Nancy?
Aflac Regional Office?
Allied Waste Services?
Bankers Life & Casualty Co?
Beth Lyons PhD?
Computer Resources?
Denise Landau, PHD?
Hormel Foods?
Meister Media Worldwide?
Schneider Electric Square D?
Schnieder Electric?
Sun Microsystems?
Universal Management Inc?
Venture Technologies?

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&gs_mss=%22Global+Ministries+Fellowship%22+intelligence&pq=%22global+ministries+fellowship%22+intelligence&cp=48&gs_id=2z3&xhr=t&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&biw=1024&bih=580&q=65+Germantown+Court,+Suite+409+Cordova,+TN+38018&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x887f9c75035490f7:0xb7bf6a05a4234bae,65+Germantown+Ct+%23409,+Cordova,+TN+38018&gl=us&sa=X&ei=2UgjUPKCN6mqiAKr7YHwCg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ8gEwAA

[Starry Messenger]

12. Kind of odd, for a ministry...

[Starry Messenger]

11. Yes.

http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/TN-Memphis-River-Trace-1212332.html

"From: fisherofhope Date: 02/26/2011
This is it. I am tired of this. Here is the web site of the "ministry" which owns these apartments. http://www.gmfonline.org/ Here is the name of the man who runs the "ministry" which runs these apartments. Rev. Richard L. Hamlet Here is his e mail [email protected] The company he uses to run the apartments is rather low rent and they have no real contact information to speak of. Save your e mails please. And I thank goodness you took pics as well. None of you have any idea what happened to this apartment complex at all. You just do not. The poster from 2/24/2011 obviously does not know who you are at all or is more than likely a member of management. Do not take them seriously at all but please take your own personal e mail off your review ASAP. Please think of the following. This apartment complex was owned and operated by Mid America Apartment Communities which is a really big private company. They did alright until they decided to put this property up for sale and run it with a skeleton crew and staff, all of those people were formally qualified for their jobs but there were barely any of them, hence the term skeletal. That happened back in 08 and they started negotiating the sale in 09 and '10. Then they up and sold to the welfare housing ministry of Rev. Richard Hamlet and he financed everything through HUD and is trying to pull off having full on market rates for rent but accepting Section Eight on the side, he is making tons of money off of that and I have nothing but empathy for those of Section Eight. Then he winds up going to the media and speaks as though the 38134 is a slum and that the people who live here are "the least of the least" But before he bought it everyone was working and paying rent properly because the law in Memphis is that a privately owned apartment complex cannot accept Section Eight. So what does this guy do? He says he has a "ministry" for welfare housing so he can load up on a fair amount of Section Eight renters and make tons of money off of them without so much as giving a darn about the fire last Christmas Eve. I researched the man and he has pulled the same con in the state of Louisiana and Indiana.He is not a Rev is the classical sense of the word at all, he is a CON ARTIST! I got out of the River Trace in one piece because my lease was up a month after that sale anyhow! So I have no beef if you will but I still have pals who live there who are going through heck. They are going through heck because The River Trace has become a slum because of the con Rev Richard Hamlet is pulling, he thinks all of you are "the least of the least." Get out while the getting out is good because those buildings are falling to pieces."

[HiPointDem]

13. hmmm:

Operating as GMF-Arbors LLC, the Cordova-based relief and development agency purchased the 348 garden style walk-up units at 6205 and 6249 Knight Arnold Road...

Founded in 2003, the faith-based organization owns and operates more than 5,200 affordable, low-to-moderate multifamily units nationwide as a 501(c)3 affordable housing developer.

http://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/news/2012/06/15/relief-agency-buys-southeast-memphis.html

So this legislation may be part of the picture:

CHDO's operate through the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which is a federally funded housing program created in 1990 as part of the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act. The HOME program is intended to create partnerships among federal, state and local governments and for-profit and nonprofit organizations who build, own manage, finance and support low-income housing.

http://www.housingnm.org/community-housing-development-organizations-chdo

Cranston-Gonzalez = Bush 1

And I'm wondering if this financing is like the deal with independent Parking Authorities which ultimately leaves the taxpayers on the hook if anything goes wrong with the financing...?

According to city officials, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been to city hall on several occasions and last visited on Friday. The city is now asking Redemptive to provide documentation by June 15 that shows employment agreements and payroll records to support payments to board members. It also wants documentation involving proceeds from the sales of homes as well as proof that Redemptive received the proper annual certification by the city to be Community Housing Development Organization.

What a stinky mess. The City is on the hook for $4.1 million, that means we, the taxpayors on the hook for $4.1 million. I hope the good Reverend is going to help raise funds to pay us back!

http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/westpalmbeat/2012/06/city-demands-documents-from-redemptive-life-bishop-ray-calls-press-conference-with-willie-gary/


Everything is being privatized on the QT & corporate types, scammers & "religious" being given a license to steal under the 501(c)(3) label of "charity" & "philanthropy".

More:

The Multifamily Capital Advance/Project Rental Assistance Contract (PRAC) modernizes the traditional Section 811 model by providing capital as well as project rental assistance to nonprofit organizations for the development of integrated permanent supportive housing for very low-income households with disabilities.

Capital Advance

Capital advances, to purchase or rehabilitate existing property or to develop new property, bear no interest and repayment is not required as long as the housing remains available for very low-income persons with disabilities for 40 years, in accordance with the Section 811 statute.

http://811resourcecenter.tacinc.org/policy-programs/multifamily-prac-option

Now I'm wondering how this ties in with the housing bubble and the purchase of large blocs (2500 at a pop) of foreclosures by LLCs.

[Starry Messenger]

15. I wonder too.

I'm surprised he hasn't pursued a sideline in charter schools. Yet.

[MrScorpio]

4. Rev Richard Hamlet, the pastor and head of GMF, has been to Tanzania

http://www.gmfonline.org/2012/07/arise-kilimanjaro-tanzania-crusade/

He and the wifey has even been to Ecuador too:

[Starry Messenger]

6. I'm going to go out on a limb here-

His trip probably didn't feature snakes trying to nibble his ankles.

[freshwest]

9. Pretty nice touristy pic there.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

14. Lovely.