Thursday, January 10, 2013
Statement on Governor Patrick's Public Housing Consolidation Proposal
I released the following statement today
in response to Governor Deval Patrick’s unveiling of a proposal to consolidate
the state’s 240 local housing authorities into six regional housing authorities:
“I appreciate Governor Patrick’s
decision to address the issue of public housing reform in light of some of the
egregious cases that have been reported involving the mismanagement of public
funds and resources, which has detrimentally impacted thousands of tenants across
the Commonwealth. Clearly, stronger
safeguards are needed to protect taxpayer dollars, and to ensure that those
dollars are used efficiently and effectively to rehabilitate and maintain our
deteriorating public housing infrastructure.
A significant question remains,
however, as to whether replacing our current system of local housing
authorities with larger, centralized bureaucracies represents the best approach
to achieving increased efficiencies and needed accountability. Recent systemic failures involving the Sex
Offender Registry Board, the state drug evidence testing lab and the oversight
of compounding pharmacies prove that large bureaucracies do not guarantee
effectiveness, efficiency or safety.
We cannot be certain how effective
the Governor’s proposal will be until we have all the details, but productive
reform needs to be about more than a power shift to Boston of responsibilities
currently handled locally. I look forward
to working with all of the interested parties to produce needed and meaningful
reforms.”
