Sept. 11--Rep. Janice Hahn is asking federal housing officials to reconsider bestowing grant money to jump-start redevelopment of the Jordan Downs project, which earlier this year was passed over by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because of what Los Angeles officials say was a glitch in uploading their application.
In a letter to HUD Secretary Julian Castro, Hahn acknowledges that L.A. officials "made a bureaucratic mistake" but says that "the people who live in the Jordan Downs community should not be punished as a result of this oversight."
"HUD should have notified my office or the mayor to state that the application was incomplete," wrote the San Pedro Democrat, who previously served on the City Council and has announced that she will run next year for a seat on the county Board of Supervisors.
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"If there are other criteria that the application is missing, I believe HUD should work with the local government and allow the mistake to be corrected so that the people in Jordan Downs can benefit from federal assistance."
Built in the 1950s, the 700-unit complex is one of several public housing projects in Watts. A $700-million plan for turning Jordan Downs into a mixed-income development has so far failed to get off the ground -- in part, advocates say, because of a lack of federal support.
After failing to secure an anticipated $30 million in grant money last year, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles was again rejected by HUD this year. Among the reasons HUD cited for its decision was that the application did not include a letter of support from Mayor Eric Garcetti. Housing authority officials say the letter failed to upload with the rest of the application to a federal website.
Hahn, whose congressional district includes Watts, isn't the first elected official to sound off about the spurned grant application. Last month, City Councilman Joe Buscaino wrote an op-ed column in The Times that called the housing authority's inability to date to win federal funding "an embarrassment and an outrage."
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