Officials Blame CHA Finances For City Housing Project Ills

A Cambridge health official and an employee of the Massachusetts Department of Community Affairs (DCA) charged yesterday that fiscal mismanagement is responsible for poor living conditions in city housing projects.

James Hartgering, Cambridge commissioner of health and hospitals, and Brian Opert, an officer of the DCA's office of management and budgets, appeared as witnesses Tuesday night at a meeting of the Committee on Housing and Land Development.

Hartgering said yesterday he had no inside knowledge about the financial workings of the Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA), which runs the projects. "When I go looking, I find what I find," he said.

Hartgering cited an example of a broken door that took several months to repair as proof of his claim that 70 per cent of public housing in the city is substandard.

No members of the CHA board were present to hear Tuesday night's criticism at the meeting arranged by City Councillor Saundra Graham.

CHA board member Gerald Hovenanian declined to answer charges of fiscal mismanagement. He said he would attend future meetings of Graham's committee if his schedule permits.

Opert said yesterday the DCA has regularly had to pay all of the Housing Authority's deficit. "The CHA has been crying poverty for years," Opert said. "They have a history of penny-pinching."

The DCA has long subsidized 30 per cent of the Housing Authority's day-to-day expenses, Opert added.

The city's housing modernization programs have been so slow-moving, Opert said, that the DCA may be forced to suspend its aid to these programs.

Opert and Hartgering were two of several witnesses criticizing the CHA's actions at Tuesday night's meeting.

Both Opert and Hartgering said yesterday they were willing to testify at future meetings of Councillor Graham's Committee on Housing and Land Development.