VHA to move residents off of valuable property
The grand land grab is on
-- John Susce of Tempo News, special to Venice Florida! dot com, 11/12/07
-- jsusce@msn.com

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Get 'em out by Friday
This past Saturday morning, while Grove Terrace residents were enjoying a beautiful day, the Venice Housing Authority (VHA) met at the Grove Terrace Public Housing administration building in Venice. The VHA  board was meeting, making plans in a three-hour workshop to move the residents out and add another chapter in the racist gentrification policies perpetuated by HUD throughout this country that has been flying under the radar screen for years.

All of the participants in the removal of poor working folks from the valuable property were there: the members of the VHA board, the consultants hired by the VHA (MDS Strum Housing Services Inc), regional HUD representative from Miami, Victor Rocher, and Christine Davis, a representative from Sarasota County’s Office of Housing and Community Development, who is needed to “rubber stamp” the ethnic cleansing.

Not present were the residents, except for two who stopped by to see what was going on. Also not present were any representatives of the Grove Terrace Residents Council. The reason the Resident Council wasn’t there is because there isn’t one and there hasn’t been one for at least three months (former resident council president, Carter Canada, says it is ten months since there was a resident’s council).

Also not present, who evidently could not find time to attend the three-hour workshop and will be required to sign off on any action by the VHA, were any members of the Venice City Council. The only media representative present was Tempo News.

The workshop was “run” by Dee Dee Strum, owner and president of MDS Strum, who flew in from New Orleans where her company is involved in public housing projects financed by HUD in that city, one of which is under investigation for a no bid contract (also flying under the radar screen is an investigation by the U.S Congress in the awarding of contracts by HUD, which includes present Director, Alphonso Jackson; investigations into HUD’s process for awarding contracts have been going on for years and certainly are not confined to one political party).

VHA board: clueless
Strum went through the present plan that the VHA is operating under, which included so many errors that it took her the majority of the three hour workshop to explain them to the VHA, one of the most clueless advisory boards one can imagine. The VHA board was also unaware that they had to submit a monthly report to HUD every month (they haven’t submitted one since May of this year).

Strum laid out a plan and time frame to remove the residents from the property, which happens to be in the epicenter of planned multi-million dollar developments and is adjacent to properties that have been bought by developer and real estate entrepreneur, Michael Miller.

If everything goes according to Strum’s plan and time frame, the ethnic cleansing of poor working folks will be a fait accompli by the end of this month.

If you want to see the next chapter of the removal of poor working folks from valuable urban property in Venice, attend the next session listed in the MDS Strum and VHA time frame for that removal, which is Thursday, November 15. That is when the VHA will present their plan recommended by Strum to the Venice City Council. [NOTE: On November 15, council will hold a special workshop to review the city's Comprehensive Plan; so far, no mention of Grove Terrace appears on the agenda. - Ed.]

If you want to read about how Sarasota is but another example of how HUD works together with local developers and real estate interests to remove poor working folks from valuable property, a series of articles will be appearing in Tempo News over the next months, articles that we have been researching and working on for months.

By the way, there were no minutes or recording of what transpired at Saturday's VHA workshop. Fortunately, Tempo News was there and we take excellent notes.

John Susce is a reporter for Tempo News -- he has been covering stories about HUD housing in Sarasota County for a number of years. This article was reproduced with the permission of the author.