All in the Family

Problem: How to get the nation’s public housing program marching in step with the welfare-reform parade toward private empowerment. Strategy: Reduce emphasis on centralized, government-run housing projects, which are widely perceived as tangles of mismanagement and red tape, and increase the go-anywhere rent voucher program called Section 8.

That’s one approach Secretary Andrew Cuomo is using to streamline the Department of Housing and Urban Development and clean up its reputation for bureaucracy and waste. So Washington is red-faced over The Times’ revelation this week that more than $15,000 of Section 8 money has found its way into the pocket of Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, one of the county’s best-paid and most powerful politicians.

What’s worse, the arrangement is perfectly within HUD regulations and no one seems to know just how many well-heeled citizens are collecting Section 8 money to house their poorer relatives.

Bradbury, with a salary of more than $130,000, collects $639 a month from HUD to let his mother live in a house on his Hang ‘Em High Ranch in Ojai. She had been receiving federal rent assistance for 20 years in Northern California despite having launched three sons into successful careers. When she moved to a separate house on the ranch in 1995 her subsidy came with her.

It’s the existence of cases like this that prompted HUD rule changes that will take effect next month. New Section 8 tenants will have to verify that they are not related to their landlords, unless the tenant is physically or mentally disabled. But those already in the subsidy program will not be turned out.

Is there anything wrong with Bradbury taking the federal money, whether or not he follows through on his offer to begin paying an equal amount to local charities? By the letter of the law, apparently not. But to the thousands of Southern Californians on waiting lists for this and similar programs, and to the taxpayers who care for their aging parents without asking Uncle Sam to pick up the housing tab, it’s outrageous to even have to ask the question.

Secretary Cuomo told The Times he may push for tighter regulations to halt in-family deals by “high-income landlords.” We would applaud such a step to limit Section 8 to where it’s needed most.