Officials prep Joe Ruffin Homes for reopening

Morgan City Housing Authority officials hope to have 14 of the 29 units at Joe Ruffin Homes on Railroad Avenue back in use in early fall.
The residential development has been out of use for at least four years because of plumbing and drainage problems, Housing Authority Executive Director Clarence Robinson said at Thursday’s housing board meeting.
One of the issues at Joe Ruffin Homes was that a drainage pump didn’t function properly, preventing residents from getting in and out of their homes during heavy rainfall, Robinson said.
Workers with the city of Morgan City are in the process of installing a new drainage pump at Joe Ruffin Homes, Robinson said.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave the Morgan City Housing Authority the go ahead to put 14 units back into use at the site, he said.
The other 15 units will take longer to get ready to be rented because the required work is more than the authority’s maintenance staff can do, Robinson said.
Robinson is grateful for the city’s and city workers’ help to fix the plumbing and drainage at the site, he said.
In March, the city accepted a payment in lieu of taxes of $143,000, covering two years of taxes, from the Housing Authority, and Morgan City leaders agreed to use some of that money to help renovate Joe Ruffin Homes.
“I think this relationship (with the city) is a tremendous blessing for this housing authority as a whole,” Robinson said.
After the meeting, Robinson said he is using two workers to temporarily fill the positions former Accounting Tech Diana Pace and former Housing Manager Sandra Greene held.
Robinson plans to wait until the last quarter of its fiscal year to go through the process of hiring permanent employees for the two openings, he said. The authority’s fiscal year ends Sept. 30.
Pace and Greene, who both pleaded guilty to a criminal charge stemming from improper bonus payments they were alleged to have received, resigned from the housing authority at the end of April after being suspended without pay earlier in the month.
A maintenance worker is taking work orders and learning how to use the authority’s software system, Robinson said. Robinson also serves as Berwick Housing Authority director. Robinson’s assistant at the Berwick Housing Authority is also helping to review the Morgan City authority’s finances, he said.
Before any permanent structural changes are made, the authority must first get approval of the civil service board, Robinson said.
Pace pleaded guilty May 13 to one count of theft of government money, while Greene pleaded guilty April 29 to the charge of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. The factual basis for their pleas stated that, from 2008 to 2013, Pace received $137,661 in fraudulent bonus payments, while Greene got $165,405 to which she wasn’t entitled.
Also in connection with the same case, former Housing Authority Director Charles Spann and former Housing Manager Tori Johnson pleaded guilty April 22 to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Spann received $111,657, and Johnson received $100,040 to which they weren’t entitled, their plea agreements stated. Spann resigned from the housing authority in June 2013. Johnson resigned before Spann did.
None of the defendants in the case have been sentenced yet.