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May 25, 2008

Moriah gets tough with absentee landlords

By LOHR McKINSTRY

MORIAH -- Supervisor Thomas Scozzafava says he wants something done about welfare recipients living in substandard, filthy homes.

"There's a situation that's been going on in my community. We have some absentee landlords in the Town of Moriah, (where) individuals on public assistance are moving into these apartments that are not fit to move in."

Scozzafava (R-Moriah) said he and the town codes-enforcement officer condemned four properties recently as unfit for human habitation. The Essex County Department of Social Services is paying the rent for the tenants involved, Scozzafava said.

"Once we condemn a place, they (Social Services) move these people from one place to another."

He said he thought Social Services supervised the clients in its care, but that may not be the case.

"One place in Mineville, there's mold, garbage. Obviously, no one is monitoring the living situations of these individuals. If they were, they would probably remove the children."

CONTROL LIMITED

He asked County Social Services Commissioner John O'Neill to explain how individuals on public assistance are monitored.

"Do we send checks out carte blanc? Do we do any kind of investigation?"

O'Neill said his agency's control over someone's living situation is limited.

"It's frustrating on all sides of the issue. Maybe somebody knows something about it, but we can't do anything about it unless it's condemned by the local codes officer. The whole system is built to be minimally intrusive on someone's right to live where they want."

In most cases, Social Services gives the rent money to the client to pay the landlord, O'Neill said. The check would go directly to the landlord only if the client requested it, he said.

REPORTABLE CONDITONS

People often call the state child-abuse hotline about such situations, O'Neill said.

"If someone believes children are living in squalor, we can go knock on the door. Then we can do something about where they live."

Local officials have to get more control over such situations, Scozzafava said.

"It's a merry-go-round here. We're moving these individuals from one place to another until they fill the place up with garbage."

Supervisor Robert C. Dedrick (R-Ticonderoga) said he's seen the same problem in his town.

"This is a cycle that's got to be broken."

The problem is statewide, O'Neill said. He said that because of confidentiality regulations they can't notify community officials when Social Services clients move into a residence.

FOLLOWING THE LAW

Then Social Services should take a leadership role, Scozzafava said.

"I can tell you a situation in Port Henry where caseworkers made visits to a residence and nothing was done. It was full of garbage."

O'Neill said it takes a court order to remove someone from a home.

"We simply follow the state law. There's no flexibility here. Despite what we want to do, what we feel morally we should do, we have to follow the law."

Scozzafava said the law should be changed if that's the case, and he plans to personally investigate the regulations O'Neill talked about.

"All we're doing is making families dysfunctional. I see bags of garbage, the mess that they leave behind, the type of (junk) food they're buying and so on. You have people, children living in this environment."

He said Moriah has been using the condemnation process against these dwellings, one of which is so bad it may have to be razed.

"I've done it (condemned homes) four times. It's horrendous. I guess the answer (from Social Services) is things are going to continue on the way they're going."

lmckinstry@pressrepublican.com

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