A Reformer Who Can Shake Up Albany?

New Yor, NY —

In his race for governor, Democrat Andrew Cuomo portrays himself as a reformer who can shake up Albany. He often cites his leadership of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. As Assistant Secretary and, later, Secretary of HUD under former President Bill Clinton, Cuomo was charged with turning around a troubled agency long notorious for mismanagement. As we profile the two Democrats running for governor, WNYC's Beth Fertig examines Cuomo's leadership of HUD.

Ready, Willing and Able is more than a slogan at the West Harlem homeless shelter run by the non-profit Doe Fund. The men who stay here are all striving to become self sufficient and staying clean is a big part of that.

OGDEN: I'm testing for cocaine, marijuana, opiates and methadone.

Ernest Ogden is going over the results of every resident's urine test.

And not one person out of 176 people in the building has come back positive, so that's a beautiful day.

Ogden isn't just an employee. Before he entered this shelter a few years ago, Ogden says he lived on the streets and sold drugs. He's now got an apartment and credits the Doe Fund with turning around his life.

OGDEN: You're working here, saving money. Possibility they can get you a job down the line. If you don't have your high school diploma you can get your GED.

The idea that homeless people need more than a bed was a model Andrew Cuomo embraced when he founded a homeless organization called HELP. Cuomo then convinced New York City to adopt a similar approach nearly a decade ago when he chaired a commission on homelessness. The Doe Fund's president, George MacDonald worked on that commission. He says Cuomo continued to push for more homeless services when he got to the department of Housing and Urban Development.

MACDONALD: Not many secretaries of HUD had the hands on experience Andrew had when he went down there. He fought and was very successful at increasing the funding.

CUOMO: When I got to HUD the homeless budget was about 300 million. When I left it was about 1.2 billion dollars. One of the largest percentage increases in the entire department. We rearranged the programs and won what's called an innovation in government award for what we did with homelessness.

Housing experts say those numbers are remarkable, because Congress was threatening to wipe out HUD. And Cuomo expanded the rent voucher program, known as section 8, which was also in jeopardy.

His supporters describe him as a relentless crusader. But Cuomo also earned his share of critics. Off the record, even housing advocates complain that he's brash, vindictive and prone to publicity stunts such as his recent stay in a Brooklyn homeless shelter. One describes Cuomo as having all the arrogance of his father Mario, the former governor. But none of his charm. Charles King - co president of Housing Works is much more diplomatic. (King is no relation to Cuomo's running mate, who has the same name.)

KING: I think that Cuomo could have been a far more effective secretary had he not been so obviously been looking out for his own political interests.

Cuomo was accused of doing just that when he famously battled former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1999, on behalf of Housing Works. Giuliani was trying to take HUD money away from the group - which was one of his critics. So Cuomo threatened to take the funds out of the city's control. Some housing advocates praised him but critics said he was just playing politics. King won't comment on that but he does give Cuomo mixed reviews.

KING: Cuomo was a good secretary in that he did increase significantly funding that was directed towards developing housing and services for homeless people. At the same time I think HUD continued to tolerate a lot of corruption and self dealing at the local level.

Problems at HUD certainly preceded Cuomo. The General Accounting Office designated the entire agency at risk in 1994 because of a history of corruption and mismanagement. Cuomo reduced the staff and streamlined programs through a reorganization plan. The GAO found some services improved. But others didn't - including a huge program that was supposed to help first-time homebuyers.

David Munsey and Dana Banks head down to the basement of their three-family house in East New York. The ceiling has been destroyed by water damage damage that was concealed to them when they bought the house more than a year and a half ago.

DAVID This beam. It's all corroded, rotted out. And they put three inches of concrete on top, look at this beam, it doesn't even touch the wall.

Munsey and Banks purchased the house with another friend for $276,000 - not knowing that was far more than its worth. Because they took out a federally insured mortgage, from a lender approved by HUD, they mistakenly believed the government was watching over everyone the company referred them to.

DANA: I mean the inspector who first inspected the house is a HUD inspector and we had an inspector who came every what, 2 weeks or so and went through a checklist.

The owners are now suing the lender and HUD. Their attorney is Richard Wagner, of South Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A. He says unscrupulous brokers and lenders took advantage of first time buyers by inflating property values and overstating HUD's authority over the deals. They had nothing to lose if the owners defaulted on these overpriced mortgages because the loans were insured by the government. Wagner says HUD should have caught on because the perpetrators targeted low to middle income, minority neighborhoods.

WAGNER: Andrew Cuomo if he wants credit for what few things HUD may have done like increasing homeless spending then he has to accept the responsibility for HUD completely abdicating its responsibilities to enforce the law and protect the people HUD was ultimately supposed to help, minority first time home buyers.

Scams like these made headlines, just before Cuomo left office, when speculators defrauded a similar program to renovate abandoned properties. Hundreds of brownstones in Harlem and Brooklyn were affected. More than 30 people were arrested and the bailout cost tens of millions of dollars.

These frauds occurred at a time when the Clinton administration was expanding homeownership opportunities. Critics say Cuomo should have created more oversight because the federal mortgage programs had long been vulnerable to abuse. He also feuded with his own agency's inspector general. She complained that his rush to reorganize the agency moved resources out of enforcement while staffing local offices she compared to public relations. Those accusations exasperate Cuomo. He says he created a new program to root out fraud in the Federal Housing Administration, or FHA. And he says its problems were small compared to the success.

CUOMO: You have to keep this in focus, you're talking, literally depending on whose numbers you're talking about several hundred on a portfolio of 7 million. Seven million FHA mortgages, seven million home owners nationwide. Highest home ownership rate. Highest home ownership rate for African Americans. And what I also think you have here is, this was used as an issue by people who wanted to make a political statement. Which is, you can't help poor people or poor places because they will steal the money.

Cuomo's supporters also believe he became a lightning rod on Capitol Hill because he was young and forceful, and part of the Clinton administration. Cushing Dolbeare is a Washington expert on housing policy who's known every secretary of HUD. She gives Cuomo credit for taking on one of the toughest federal agencies, and expanding its budget by billions of dollars.

DOLBEARE: He's very aggressive and very energetic and I think a lot of people think his main interest is Andrew Cuomo. And my guess if from what I've seen he's certainly not uninterested in Andrew Cuomo. But I don't think if your main interest is your own political career and your own political future you would ever go be secretary of HUD.

Cuomo certainly isn't the only New York politician to provoke strong reactions from supporters and opponents, alike. In a primary where he's now running behind opponent Carl McCall, Cuomo is trying to persuade voters that his record is more important than his style. For WNYC, I'm Beth Fertig.