HUD May Tighten Rules on Landlords Renting to Kin

VENTURA — Responding to the disclosure that Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury is using federal money in renting a house to his mother, the nation’s top housing official said Sunday that he may further tighten new regulations to halt such practices by “high-income landlords.”

U.S. Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo’s statement came in response to a Times story Sunday about how Bradbury, whose yearly salary is $131,804, collects $639 a month in federal rent subsidies to house his mother on his four-acre Ojai ranch.

Bradbury’s mother, Marie, receives rent subsidies through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 8 housing voucher program, designed to provide affordable housing to those who would otherwise be unable to secure decent accommodations.

Under new federal housing regulations set to take effect next month, new tenants in the federal subsidy program must first verify that they are not related to their landlords, unless the tenant is physically or mentally disabled.

Cuomo said Sunday he is considering tightening the rules further.

“I will review this regulation to determine if it should be tightened further to bar high-income landlords already in the program from collecting subsidies for renting to relatives,” Cuomo said. “As part of the review, HUD will establish guidelines defining ‘high-income.’ We will not tolerate waste, fraud and abuse in this or any other HUD program.”

Bradbury’s mother has lived since July 1995 in a manufactured house on her son’s ranch, which was assessed last year at $558,000. The house sits next to Bradbury’s five-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot main house.

In an earlier interview, Bradbury said he sees no personal conflict in the rent subsidy because his mother has received it for more than 20 years, well before she began renting from him. He said the federal subsidy is not important to him, but it is to his mother because it makes her feel she is not being a burden on his family.

Bradbury could not be reached for comment Sunday.

About 5,400 tenants in Ventura County receive Section 8 rent subsidies, and about 6,900 more are on waiting lists of three to five years.