Luxuries at Modesto SCAP homes described

Modesto -- City Hall records shed more light on the luxuries that a nonprofit housing developer installed in Neighborhood Stabilization homes in Modesto — all at taxpayer expense.

For example, the Stanislaus Community Assistance Project spent at least $18,000 to improve the bathrooms in a northwest Modesto home with custom tile work, vessel sinks costing $570 and a $2,500 Picasso bathtub. The designer tub, made for deep soaking, was surrounded by ornate tiles.

Working with contractor Greg Litke of Modesto, SCAP also remodeled the kitchen of the home at 3928 Weston Way with Caesarstone quartz countertops, refinished cabinets and built-in stainless steel appliances.

Invoices show that SCAP paid $776 to purchase the dishwasher for the kitchen, along with a range costing $763 and a refrigerator for about $1,300. Other developers in the city's Neighborhood Stabilization Program spent hundreds of dollars less for kitchen appliances.

Pictures of the soaking tub and other costly items are displayed in the city file for the Weston Way home, but there are no signs city staff questioned the expenditures. The city approved more than $50,000 in reimbursements to SCAP for interior upgrades to the kitchen, bathrooms and other rooms.

After all was completed, SCAP Housing Director Caryl Prunty and her children moved into the Weston home last year. About three months ago, Prunty suddenly moved from the Weston home to another NSP house in Modesto's La Loma area.

This kind of spending has cast more doubts on the city's oversight of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which has used federal money to buy and renovate foreclosed homes to provide affordable housing to people with low to moderate incomes.

Federal regulators are looking closely at how SCAP spent more than $7.5 million to buy and improve 21 foreclosed residential properties, including homes, duplexes and a 31-unit apartment complex.

High-end appliances

City officials cite an ongoing investigation in refusing to release the files for a home at 913 Rumble Road, where SCAP spent $164,000 on upgrades and then rented the house to the parents of Executive Director Denise Gibbs.

Judith Ray, the city's deputy director of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhoods, said last week there is no established price range for kitchen appliances installed in NSP homes. In a prepared statement, officials said Tuesday the $2,500 designer bathtub "has a more 'designer' look than we would typically see" but it met the "cost reasonableness" standards for the program.

An invoice, dated Jan. 15, 2010, shows that Litke purchased the Picasso tub from a Modesto supplier that boasts a high-end showroom for international bath products.

The Stanislaus County Housing Authority, another nonprofit developer in the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, spent far less for kitchen appliances for an NSP home, including $248 for a dishwasher and $419 for an energy-efficient refrigerator.

Leo Briones, a Southern California political consultant who speaks for SCAP, said the nonprofit would not comment on whether the home was improved for Prunty's benefit. In an e-mail, he said that SCAP purchased higher quality materials and appliances to maintain the value of the rental homes over 25 years.

"Yes, low-end refrigerators such as Maytags may cost $800, but a $1,300 refrigerator such as a GE 22.0 cubic feet is by no means 'lavish,' " he wrote.

His e-mail didn't comment on the Picasso tub.

Contradictions

SCAP's purchases seem to contradict statements by Parks, Recreation and Neighborhoods Director Julie Hannon to the City Council on June 7 — that the city had systems in place to prevent exorbitant spending for NSP projects.