Architect of Katrina housing disaster resigns amid criminal probe

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced today that he is stepping down to "attend more diligently to personal and family matters." The last day in office for the nation's scandal-plagued HUD secretary will be April 18.

The announcement comes just over a week after Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Senate Appropriations Committee member Patty Murray of Washington requested Jackson's resignation, saying the various controversies engulfing the secretary were complicating efforts to address the national mortgage crisis and related recession.

A Texas native and longtime friend of President Bush, Jackson is currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the HUD Inspector General, a federal grand jury and prosecutors from the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section for alleged conflicts of interest involving the controversial redevelopment of public housing in New Orleans and the Virgin Islands. In New Orleans, HUD awarded a $127 million deal to Columbia Residential, an Atlanta firm for which Jackson worked and that still owes him at least $250,000. The probe focuses on whether Jackson lied to Congress when he testified that he was not directly involved in contracting decisions.

Federal agents are also investigating whether Jackson arranged work for friends. One of them, contractor William Hairston of South Carolina, landed a profitable deal with the Housing Authority of New Orleans, which is under HUD control. The National Journal has reported that investigators are also examining financial ties between Jackson's wife and companies that did business with HANO. In addition, the Philadelphia Housing Authority has filed a lawsuit claiming Jackson took retaliatory action after the agency scrapped a deal involving his friend, former music producer-turned-developer Kenny Gamble. A 2007 probe by HUD's Inspector General found that Jackson urged his staff to favor the president's friends when awarding contracts.

But corruption and cronyism were not the only problems at HUD during Jackson's tenure: His agency also oversaw a problematic housing recovery effort on the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that has left many disaster-displaced renters and low-income homeowners struggling to exercise their human right of return and resulted in a doubling of homelessness in New Orleans.

HUD's policies helped fulfill the prophecy Jackson made shortly after Katrina that New Orleans was "not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again." Since the storm, New Orleans' black population has fallen by 57 percent, compared to 36 percent for its white population. As a result, a city that was 67 percent black before the disaster is now estimated to be only 58 percent black.

(HUD photo of Secretary Jackson and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour in Gulfport, Miss. announcing a plan to help low-income homeowners affected by Hurricane Katrina)

Labels: Alphonso Jackson, conflict of interest, cronyism, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, HUD, Hurricane Katrina, new orleans