A year after publishing revelations of widespread corruption at the Miami-Dade Housing Agency, the MIAMI HERALD reported similar problems at the city of Miami’s own agency last month in House of Lies 2: Miami’s Crisis. Reporters Debbie Cenziper, Oscar Corral, and Larry Lebowitz pored through city records to uncover more than $10 million in outstanding loans to developers for public housing projects that were never completed—or in some cases, even started. The city also failed to learn from its mistakes, continuing to grant lucrative loans and contracts to local developers with track records of delays and incomplete work. Some of the allegations struck close to Miami’s political power elite: one of the largest outstanding loans was $700,000 granted to Alberto Lorenzo, Mayor Manny A. Diaz’s campaign manager.
But the most egregious cases of corruption were within Miami housing director Barbara Gomez’s own family. Gomez—already reeling from the scandals entangling ex-husband Rene Rodriguez , longtime director of the county housing agency—approved loans to local non-profits employing both another ex-husband, Ruben A. Santana, and their son, Ruben A. Santana, Jr. The agency went forward with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of loans, even though the federal department of Housing and Urban Development ruled that the blood connection represented a conflict of interest.
Soon after the articles were published last month, the HERALD reported that Gomez was being forced out of the head position. On July 12, Gomez, director of the Community Development Department since 2003, was fired after she failed to accept a demotion.
