HUD: Sherman Hills Management ‘Unsatisfactory’

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Luzerne County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

WILKES-BARRE, PA — Management of the Sherman Hills apartment complex has been found “unsatisfactory” by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to a news release from the federal housing agency.

A full report of HUD’s inspection of the crime-plagued complex is expected to be released in the near future, HUD’s Senior Management Analyst S. Van Williams said Wednesday.

HUD officials visited the complex on Sept. 16 and Sept. 17 to complete an on-site Management and Occupancy Review after two girls, 5 and 2 years old, suffered gunshot wounds in Building 328 on Aug. 24. No charges have been filed, however, Luzerne County Assistant District Attorney Brian Coleman said during a court proceeding on Sept. 12 that three men were being investigated.

On Monday 27-year-old Shantique Goodson, of 328 Parkview Circle in Sherman Hills and formerly of Rochester, N.Y., was fatally shot while she was sitting in a Jeep Grand Cherokee near Building 328.

Read more: http://timesleader.com/news/local-news/983008/HUD:-Sherman-Hills-management-unsatisfactory

FOX29 Investigates Local Property Manager

FOX29 investigative reporter Jeff Cole interviews Katy Jackson, a Pottstown civic activist, while trying to get to the bottom of why Affinity Property Management Company, formerly located on High Street in downtown Pottstown, owes their clients thousands of dollars.  The office closed in May.

To watch this segment, click here: http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/23939642/fox29-investigates-local-property-manager#.UoGxgbf9ra0.facebook

Playing With Philadelphia’s Tax Money

Editor’s note:  Here’s another reason they call Pottstown “little Philadelphia“.   Just change out Philadelphia with Pottstown.  Same problems, just a smaller scale but equally as devastating to the residents of both communities.

Philadelphia’s decades-long neglect of property-tax collections has been a disaster for public schools, the city budget, and typical taxpaying homeowners.

But the system does have its advantages for low-rent landlords, out-of-town speculators, and anyone else interested in playing property Powerball, a game where the objective is to pile up real estate in hope of hitting a gentrification jackpot, while keeping out-of-pocket expenses – like taxes – as low as possible.

Some are big winners, such as the investor who picked up three adjacent Northern Liberties lots in 1994 for a combined $16,000, skipped paying taxes on the lots for more than a decade, and made good on the debt only after flipping the parcels for $750,000 in 2010.

Such speculative windfalls are rare, but it’s not for lack of trying.  Of the roughly 100,000 tax-delinquent properties in Philadelphia, at least 57,500 are owned by investors, not occupants. These are parcels deeded to suburbanites and Floridians, developers and Brooklyn-based holding companies, small-time local speculators and real estate tycoons with dozens of properties to their name.

Read more:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/city/20130311_Playing_with_the_city_s_tax_money.html