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Tens of thousands of dollars have gone to pay rent for Section 8 properties owned by two Dayton housing authority executives or their family members in recent years, a Dayton Daily News investigation has found.
This is in potential violation of conflict of interest rules put in place to prevent housing authority employees from profiting from the Section 8 low-income housing program the agency oversees.
The situations add to an ongoing internal investigation by a legal firm hired by the governing board of Greater Dayton Premier Management — formerly Dayton Metropolitan Housing Authority — to look into allegations including unfair treatment of employees by agency CEO Gregory Johnson.
The potential conflicts of interest involve two employees. One is Darryl Miles, formerly director of the Section 8 program and currently in charge of inspections of Section 8 property. The other is Wylie Boddie, who oversees all low-income housing properties owned by GDPM.
Boddie’s mother owns a Section 8 property, and GDPM policy prohibits employees’ family members from having property in the program. GDPM officials say they may change the policy to allow this.
Miles owned Section 8 property for several years — but said on his employment application that he did not — and has for years been working on the side as a Realtor for a company that manages several Section 8 properties. Copies of emails show he sometimes handled work as a Realtor through his GDPM email address during the business day.
The newspaper’s findings have also sparked an investigation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), officials there said last week.
HUD rules forbid a housing authority from entering into a contract or arrangement in which an employee “has any interest, direct or indirect.” HUD officials say conflicts of interest must be reported to HUD. On rare occasions, the local HUD field office can grant waivers to these provisions. But no such notifications or waivers have been communicated from GDPM to HUD since at least 2005, records show.
“It would not be appropriate to state definitely whether any of the scenarios you describe violate conflict of interest rules,” said HUD spokeswoman Laura Feldman. “Suffice it to say they are of the type that would warrant further investigation.”
Messages left for both Boddie and Miles were not returned.
Boddie’s property
Section 8 pays private landlords a portion of their tenant’s rent and utilities to assist very low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to find housing. Participants choose their own housing, including single-family homes, townhouses and apartments. The federal program is administered locally by GDPM.
GDPM’s personnel manual prohibits employees from owning or operating any property administered through Section 8. It defines “own” as including “real estate owned or titled in the name of employee’s spouse or any relative of employee.”
Boddie’s personnel file includes documents signed in 2008 and 2010 attesting that he is in line with this policy, the Daily News found.
The Montgomery County Auditor’s Office lists Boddie’s mother’s property as being transferred into her name in 2007, after his father died. It lists the owner’s address as Boddie’s home address, not hers.
Agency spokesman Kim Sharp — president of the PR firm FocusMark that was hired to deal with the Dayton Daily News — said the policy was misworded.
“What the policy means to state is the employee can’t have any legal or equitable interest in that type of real estate, and what the housing authority is stating is that Boddie is abiding by that,” Sharp said. “He doesn’t own any legal or equitable interest in that real estate. It’s his mother Julia’s.”
“They are going to discuss and make a recommendation to the board ... to tighten up the language,” Sharp said Tuesday.
GDPM’s board met Wednesday and held closed-door meetings to discuss personnel issues, and to meet with the law firm hired by the board last month to look into other allegations uncovered by the Daily News.
In addition to Boddie attesting on paper twice that he was in line with the current policy the lease agreement with HUD specifies that a property in Section 8 can’t be owned by the parent of an employee.
“If there is a conflict of interest and the (contract) describes in detail what constitutes a conflict, the owner is responsible for notifying both HUD and the (housing authority) that a conflict of interest exist,” said Feldman.
“There is no getting around that fact. That is why its stated in the ... contract,” she said. “Otherwise it is a violation of departmental regulations.”
GDPM pays $327 a month to subsidize the person living at the property Boddie’s mother owns at 713 Edison St., according to agency records. The tenant pays another $23 a month in rent. Rent subsidies for the Edison Street property have totaled $18,260 since February 2007.
Agency officials say the property has been in the program since 2002, prior to Boddie’s employment with GDPM. Boddie is currently director of asset management, reporting directly to the executive director and earning a salary of $75,004.
Agency officials say Boddie does not live with his mother. She lives in publicly subsidized housing elsewhere in the city. Her housing subsidy is not overseen by a GDPM program.
Miles’ property
GDPM’s personnel policy was strengthened in 2007 after agency CEO Johnson was alerted that GDPM employee Darryl Miles owned a property in the program while he was also the head of the Section 8 program. He was forced to sell the property. Miles is now director of business development and has a salary of $71,770.
Miles was hired in 2005 as assistant manager of Section 8. His Dec. 1, 2004, employment application asks “Do you own or operate any Section 8 Housing?” to which he answered “No.”
But a month later, on Dec. 29, he entered into a land installment contract to sell his property at 6717 Little Richmond Road that was registered as a Section 8 home.
The land contract meant Miles would have retained ownership of the property until it was paid off in 2024.
In 2007, after Miles was promoted to manager of Section 8, the property brought in up to $610 a month in rental subsidies, totaling $5,630 that year.
“When Gregory Johnson was alerted to Mr. Miles’ purchase agreement for the property in 2007, Mr. Johnson hired the law firm Porter Wright to act as an independent third-party to review the situation, as he was not clear on whether a purchase agreement constituted ownership,” the statement said.
The firm found that Miles “made a good faith effort” to sell the property via a land contract. But to be safe, it suggested Miles do a conventional sale within 90 days. Miles then sold it.
GDPM also revised its policy.
“Following the inquiry, the language pertaining to employee ownership of properties that are a part of the (Section 8) program in the organization’s personnel manual was significantly strengthened — per recommendations made by Porter Wright — in order to clarify the policy and prevent future issues,” the agency’s statement said.
That is the same policy the agency is looking to revise now.
Agency officials won’t comment directly on the newspaper’s findings. They will only comment through a PR firm commissioned to deal with the Daily News during an ongoing internal investigation of the agency.
That investigation is being handled by the law firm Dinsmore and Shohl. It was hired by GDPM’s board to look into allegations uncovered by the Daily News and spelled out in an internal audit that, among other things, Johnson was giving pay and perks to his executive assistant out of line with agency policy.
Miles moonlights as Realtor
As both director of Section 8 and currently as head of the department that oversees inspections of Section 8 properties, Miles has also worked as a real estate agent employed by RCF Properties, which manages several Section 8 properties, the Daily News found.
Emails from this year obtained by the Daily News show Miles using his GDPM email address for listing property for RCF Properties as recently as Dec. 8. Emails were sent in July between his address and a property development firm in which a property was discussed for a barber shop. In other emails from September he and the recipient discussed selling a home with a basement. Some were sent weekdays during business hours, according to print-outs of the emails supplied by GDPM after a public record request by the Dayton Daily News.
Miles was asked to write a disclosure to the GDPM governing board in June 2007 notifying the board that he was associated with RCF Properties as a Realtor and that the agency could enter into Section 8 contracts with GDPM. Miles was then director of Section 8.
“I declare and disclose that I have no financial or business interest or benefit in or from any Housing Assistance Contracts entered into with RCF Properties, Inc. and further declare that I am not and will not be the hearing officer in any hearings involving RCF Proprties, Inc.,” the disclosure said.
Miles renewed his license with the state in July and listed RCF Properties as his “supervisor.”
RCF President Raymond C. Frye said this week that Miles has received no compensation from his brokerage in years.
“He worked for me about 10 years ago and we now hold his license, but he hasn’t sold anything ... in years,” Frye said. “It’s safe to say he has not had a closing in three years.”
“Although RCF Properties manage and/or own property associated with the Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) Program, Mr. Miles relationship with RCF Properties is strictly associated with the sale of listed properties,” said a written statement from the agency in response to questions from the Daily News.
“Mr. Miles’ compensation from RCF Properties only pertains to the actual sale of listed properties.”
As director of the housing inspection program, Miles is in charge of inspecting homes owned and managed by RCF Properties.
Until questioned about it by the Daily News, Miles’ contact information on the Dayton-area real estate listing service had an RCF phone number and GDPM email address. Asked about this, agency officials say he told them his home Internet was down the day he made that listing. His email address has since been changed to a private account.
The number of properties RCF manages and owns fluctuates, according to agency records. They currently manage two properties and own one in Section 8, with a total GDPM-funded income of more than $10,000 since January 2010. And they manage several other Section 8 units held in receivership for the courts.
GDPM has a $44 million budget and oversees 2,800 low-income apartments and other housing units, including Section 8 properties.
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