Facing annual deficits estimated at $65 million, the city’s Housing Authority last month sent 151 tenant leaders to a housing conference in New Orleans and picked up the tab with federal funds, The Post has learned.
Officials confirmed sending tenants to the annual conference of the National Alliance of Resident Services in Affordable and Assisted Housing, but claimed they couldn’t immediately say what it cost. The three-day event ended on Sept. 29.
The registration fee alone was $325 — and that was for members of the sponsoring organization. Nonmembers paid $375.
The Astor Crowne Plaza in the French Quarter offered accommodations at a bargain rate of $101 a night, plus tax. But even just that set back the Housing Authority more than $45,000.
HA officials defended the expenditure as a logical way of meeting the federal government’s requirement that it set aside part of its operating subsidy for what are known as “resident participation activities.”
“This is an eligible expense, since it provides training to resident leaders in the area of public-housing policies, programs, rights and responsibilities and community organization and leadership training,” the agency said in a statement.
Last year, when the same conference was held in Orlando, the Housing Authority sent more than 140 people.