WBJ: Ex-D.C. housing nonprofit chief sues over dismissal
Washington Business Journal - by Melissa Castro Staff Reporter
View Larger For years, D.C.’s affordable housing advocates have grumbled about the perceived ineptitude of the sole nonprofit that D.C. paid to guide new tenant-owners through the intricacies of owning and managing their own cooperative apartment buildings.
And for years, the grumbling stayed mostly quiet and out of the public’s earshot.
Now, the former executive director of that maligned organization, the Greater Washington Mutual Housing Association, has dropped a bombshell lawsuit against the nonprofit and its leaders, putting the issues out for all to see. He is suing for wrongful termination, saying he was fired for raising questions about the organization and trying to clean it up.
Sadly, the public airing of grievances comes a little too late, as many of the coops the association was paid to help are mired in financial trouble and the association itself is dissolving in Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
“The citizens have lost millions of dollars of taxpayer monies and the success of low- and moderate-income condominium and cooperatives has been jeopardized,” the whistleblowing executive and decorated war veteran, Charles Withers, wrote in a plea for pro bono help.
So far, that plea has gone unanswered. Withers — who is not an attorney — has been representing himself in the lawsuit he filed in D.C. Superior Court in July. He has been unemployed for the past 17 months, making it difficult for him to continue litigating the case on his own. “We’ve just been hanging on by our toenails here, not even our fingernails,” he said.
Withers’ 23-page complaint alleges a long history of conflicts of interest at the organization and the agency that funded it, as well as a grievous failure to perform the work D.C. hired it to do. Tax filings, land records and other affordable housing advocates lend support to many of his claims.
To continue reading click HERE.
For more Congress Heights and River East news visit The Congress Heights Examiner website, http://www.examiner.com/x-13507-Congress-Heights-Community-Examiner
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View Larger For years, D.C.’s affordable housing advocates have grumbled about the perceived ineptitude of the sole nonprofit that D.C. paid to guide new tenant-owners through the intricacies of owning and managing their own cooperative apartment buildings.
And for years, the grumbling stayed mostly quiet and out of the public’s earshot.
Now, the former executive director of that maligned organization, the Greater Washington Mutual Housing Association, has dropped a bombshell lawsuit against the nonprofit and its leaders, putting the issues out for all to see. He is suing for wrongful termination, saying he was fired for raising questions about the organization and trying to clean it up.
Sadly, the public airing of grievances comes a little too late, as many of the coops the association was paid to help are mired in financial trouble and the association itself is dissolving in Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
“The citizens have lost millions of dollars of taxpayer monies and the success of low- and moderate-income condominium and cooperatives has been jeopardized,” the whistleblowing executive and decorated war veteran, Charles Withers, wrote in a plea for pro bono help.
So far, that plea has gone unanswered. Withers — who is not an attorney — has been representing himself in the lawsuit he filed in D.C. Superior Court in July. He has been unemployed for the past 17 months, making it difficult for him to continue litigating the case on his own. “We’ve just been hanging on by our toenails here, not even our fingernails,” he said.
Withers’ 23-page complaint alleges a long history of conflicts of interest at the organization and the agency that funded it, as well as a grievous failure to perform the work D.C. hired it to do. Tax filings, land records and other affordable housing advocates lend support to many of his claims.
To continue reading click HERE.
For more Congress Heights and River East news visit The Congress Heights Examiner website, http://www.examiner.com/x-13507-Congress-Heights-Community-Examiner
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