Latest news with #LowIncomeHeatingandEnergyAssistanceProgram
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
With sale of Borinquen Apartments, New England Farm Workers Council pays off debt to state over misspent money
SPRINGFIELD – The New England Farm Workers sold the Borinquen Apartments in the North End this week to the building's longtime managers for $1.36 million. The sale of the 23-unit building at 2772 Main St. helps pay off the last of a $1.8 million debt owed to the state over misspent fuel assistance funds, says Daniel Knapik, the former Westfield mayor brought in to liquidate the nonprofit's real estate and satisfy the state. The state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities filed a release of the farm workers group's mortgage Tuesday in the Hampden County Registry of Deeds, confirming that the debt has been satisfied. The buyers are Isla Associates 1 and its manager, Maggie Rivera. The $1.36 million sale nearly completes the unwinding of a real estate portfolio amassed by Heriberto 'Herbie' Flores, the former head of the farm workers. In an emailed response to questions, Rivera referred to ongoing litigation seeking to block the sale of properties in the Brightwood area spurred by the involvement of Flores, founder of the farmworkers group. 'I am a property manager by trade. I never had ambition to own property. For over 30 years, I've worked to help improve quality of life for people less blessed than I,' she wrote. 'At some point, the asset became transactional. Brightwood properties that were once developed to promote our neighborhood were being sold. Once that happens, priorities shift, and the community loses its voice,' Rivera wrote. 'Borinquen was not under the protection of litigation as other Brightwood-owned properties in the community. So, we stepped up.' She said company Isla had credibility with U.S. Housing and Urban Development and with the state. This made the transaction easier. 'I love what I do, I love the people I work for,' Rivera wrote. 'Wealth comes in many forms. The day after closing will be just another workday. I will continue to zealously advocate for our residents their homes and the preservation of property intended for our community.' Knapik addressed what remains to be sold. 'Looking back, it's not overly complicated,' said Knapik, who headed the farm workers for about four years until leaving for a new job. 'Properties were bought with the mindset that the farm workers would operate services out of the properties, either them or an affiliate.' But the group lost contracts with the state and federal governments to perform services and it lost business tenants with the pandemic. 'They were left with all these buildings and no way to pay for them,' he said. The farm workers council was once the local administrators for LIHEAP, the Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program that helps people with energy bills in winter. But auditors say the group inappropriately spent $1.8 million in LIHEAP funds to prop pup other operations. The group had to pledge its real estate portfolio as collateral until it paid off the debt, a promise in the form of a mortgage in 2023. The properties included not only Borinquen but also the Paramount Theatre, Massasoit House and the massive complex at 1618 Main St. where The Student Prince Café and The Fort are located. Both have already sold, the Paramount to a Connecticut family that plans to take on a failed redevelopment project and the The Fort to the same team of investors who saved the restaurant business and were renting from the farm workers nonprofit. Besides programming, Flores' group held contracts with federal and state government tenants, including the Massachusetts Lottery. Knapik, who is now a consultant with the farm workers, said there are only a few properties remaining in the group's portfolio. That includes 217-225 High St. in Holyoke, a former bank building that has not sold at repeated auctions. The organization still owns vacant lots in Springfield's heavily Hispanic North End near the Borinquen. Those properties will be sold, Knapik said. The money will be put towards paying off other debts. In addition to the LIHEAP debt, the sale of real estate has also funded $3.19 million in mortgage loan payoffs of various buildings. That money was owed to Westfield Bank, TD Bank North, Community Bank and Berkshire Bank, Knapik said. Further, the city of Springfield has been paid $214,235.91 to cover a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development loan. That money came from the sale of a property at 21-23 Hampden St. in Springfield, the Shakago Bar and Grill building. The group also owed over $500,000 in property taxes. Just the sale of the Borinquen was a complex transaction, Knapik said. Out of the purchase price for the Borinquen, Isla paid the state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities nearly $69,0000 to cover back fees for tax credit asset management. These fees are related to a 2013 rehab of the property funded in part with tax credits. The farm workers netted $1.3 million from the sale. Of that, $576,000 went to pay off the LIHEAP debt. The City of Springfield was paid $50,000 for an outstanding HUD loan. Westfield Bank was paid $603,000 on five separate loans. Legal fees associated with the transaction were $61,000 going back to a letter of intent with another potential purchaser in 2023. The farm workers negotiated with Isla and the other potential buyer for years, Knapik said. The Borinquen was once known as the Hooker Apartments, named apparently in honor of Civil War general and Hadley native Joseph Hooker. It was built in 1908. Today, it's a neatly kept property with families seen coming and going and a first-floor laundromat. PeoplesBank buys naming rights to Hartford arena Residential retrofitting program turns on high-speed internet for Bay Meadow Apts. in Springfield Chicopee budget up 6% on personnel, police costs; mayor proposes $3M to defray taxes Read the original article on MassLive. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
The Republican Plot to Let People Die of Heatstroke
A study released on Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization found an 80 percent likelihood that at least one of the next five years will break new heat records, surpassing 2024 to become the hottest year ever recorded. The National Weather Service has predicted that this summer will be among the hottest ever in the United States. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is taking a chain saw to programs that keep people alive when temperatures soar. As Republicans attempt to slash Inflation Reduction Act subsidies for renewable energy and electric vehicles, drastic cuts to programs that ostensibly have nothing to do with climate change could put more people at risk of getting sick and dying from extreme heat. Case in point is the relatively low-profile Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP. Created by Congress in 1981 as a means to help people afford the costs of heating and cooling their homes, it currently helps some 6.2 million people pay their bills. In early April, the Trump administration fired the program's entire staff of fewer than 30 people, whose jobs were housed within Robert F. Kennedy's Department of Health and Human Services. Congress allocated $4.1 billion to LIHEAP this fiscal year, about 90 percent of which had already been distributed to states by the time the administration decided to purge its staff. That leaves $378 million left to be given out, and no one left to do it. The White House's 2026 discretionary budget proposes eliminating LIHEAP altogether. LIHEAP's budget isn't a massive line item for the federal government, but it could be the difference between life and death for those who depend on it to keep their homes from turning into ovens. Roughly two million households across the Northeast rely on the program. In some of those states, more than 50 percent of LIHEAP users are over the age of 60—populations that are especially vulnerable to extreme heat. One Virginia-wide study found that zip codes with higher percentages of residents 65 and older were associated with a 23 percent higher risk of heat-related emergency room visits and hospital admissions in high temperatures. Keeping homes cooler can prevent those outcomes, but doing so is unaffordable for many. Roughly 17 percent of U.S. residents spend at least a tenth of their annual income on energy. One in four people here report keeping their homes at unsafe temperatures in order to save money. In Arizona's Maricopa County last year, for instance, 138 people died indoors of heat-related causes; 18 percent of those deaths occurred in homes where the air conditioning either wasn't turned on or wasn't working properly. Pennsylvania has canceled an LIHEAP program that provides free air conditioning units and fans to qualifying households. While those cuts are due to leftover American Rescue Act funds drying up, the end of federal LIHEAP funding could put additional lifesaving programs at risk. There are several steps that cities, states, and utilities could take to mitigate the damage of eliminating LIHEAP. But pressure on state and municipal budgets posed by impending Medicaid cuts, for instance, will make that more difficult. Soaring electricity bills force lower-income households to choose between keeping the air on and necessities like food and childcare. Discussions about Republican attacks on climate policy in recent weeks have focused mainly on the House's budget bill, which would gut IRA programs that incentivize corporations and homeowners to invest in low-carbon manufacturing, energy-efficient appliances, and renewable energy. Yet that bill's sweeping cuts to welfare state programs like Medicaid and SNAP benefits—which would kick tens of millions of people off both—could leave millions at risk of dying in heat waves in ways that are harder to track, as more people are forced to make dangerous trade-offs between staying cool, seeking out medical treatment, and putting food on the table. These pressures are especially acute for the country's 45 million renters. While states typically require landlords to keep renters' homes above a certain temperature in the winter, there are many fewer provisions to protect tenants against extreme heat. Some historically hotter municipalities—like Tempe, Arizona, and New Orleans—have put in place cooling standards and maximum temperature ordinances, but such protections are rare. Even rarer are rules that keep landlords from raising rents by exorbitant amounts if they do install air conditioners. The GOP has for years tried to paint climate policy as a wasteful extravagance for coastal liberals who want to virtue-signal to their neighbors by putting solar panels on their roofs and buying electric vehicles. As temperatures continue to rise, however, all policy is climate policy. Cuts that make people poorer also make them more vulnerable to baking in their homes; programs that keep people out of poverty help them avoid meeting that fate. In the short term, especially, LIHEAP, SNAP, and Medicaid are arguably as important to surviving a warming world as any of the programs that Democrats might advertise as being a part of their climate agenda. If Republicans take an ax to all of the above, they'll have blood on their hands.
