Rose Stevens called WWL-TV on Tuesday, furious after seeing her home on a list provided by the city that showed a non-profit city agency, New Orleans Affordable Homeownership, cut the grass, removed debris and boarded up her property.

“They came out here because I talked to the man on the phone,” Stevens said, adding that the day a contractor came to her home, he left, after saying her house looked fine. 

“They ain't did nothing,” Stevens said.

She is one of the seven people who contacted WWL-TV Tuesday to say their home showed up on the list provided by the city, yet the non-profit agency did no work.  This is the same list that Mayor Ray Nagin called “accurate” at a press conference last week.

“It's unfortunate that you found discrepancies,” said City Council President Jackie Clarkson on Tuesday, “because I was taking that list on good faith and hoping it was totally correct, because we expected it to be.”

Hall Enterprises

City records provided by the Nagin administration show that six contractors earned more than $100,000 during the six months the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership (NOAH) program was in operation.  Two of them, Hall Enterprises and Parish-Dubuclet, earned about one third of the total money doled out.

Hall Enterprises is owned by Richard Hall, who told Eyewitness News he would be unavailable for an on-camera interview, but could talk by phone.

When asked if his company was formed right before the NOAH program started, Hall answered “That is correct.”

One home analyzed by WWL stands out, when it comes to Hall Enterprises’ track record.  City records and even NOAH files indicate the agency did do work on a home on Sere Street, featured in the Monday night WWL report.

The homeowner told Eyewitness News a woman named Janet Jones from a North Carolina church group, and not a NOAH contractor, did the remediation work on his home. 

On Tuesday, Richard Hall told WWL he was not sure why many of NOAH’s records of his work raise questions.

“My character and myself, I wouldn't want nothing to come back on me,” Hall said.  “So I was going to do everything, you know, pretty much by the book.”

A search of the Louisiana Secretary of State's web site reveals Richard Hall used to own another company, TJH, Inc.  The other member of that company is Stacey Jackson, the former executive director of NOAH.

WWL-TV asked Hall how well he knows Jackson.

“I don't want to cause any conflict, but I know her very well,” Hall said in a telephone interview.

When asked whether his relationship with Jackson got him the contractor job with NOAH, Hall answered “No, not at all.”

On that Secretary of State document, Hall lists his address as 1620 S. Salcedo Street.  That address also shows up on the document provided by the city last week that showed all of the properties cleaned by NOAH contractors.   NOAH claims to have done more than $5,000 worth of work.

WWL tracked down the owner of the house at 1620 S. Salcedo St., in Texas.  She said by phone that Richard Hall is her uncle, but he's never lived in the South Salcedo Street house.  She said she never took part in the city's home remediation program, but that ACORN gutted and boarded up her home.  She said she pays a gardener to cut her grass and no one else has ever done that work.

Richard Hall said he's not sure if NOAH did the work, but a search of the non-profit agency’s files Monday revealed they had a folder indicating they did.

Hall also told WWL he earned $270,000 in 2007.  He said the city also paid him another large sum of money this summer, in June or July.  He doesn’t remember the exact date but said it is about the same time Stacey Jackson resigned as NOAH's executive director.

Parish-Debuclet

NOAH records lead to many questions on the work done by the second highest-earning contractor, Parish-Dubuclet.  17 of the properties on the city's list that, according to WWL research, don't exist were allegedly remediated by that company.

In state records, Parish-Dubuclet's owner, Trellis Smith lists 432 N. Anthony, Suite 306 as the company's New Orleans address.

But when Eyewitness News visited that building, people there had never heard of Smith.  An engineering firm said they've been in Suite 306 for 30 years. 

State records show that another company owned by Trellis Smith, the H.I.M. store in Canal Place, is co-owned by Stacey Jackson, the former executive director of NOAH.

Smith also owns EC Advertising.  According to the company web site, Stacey Jackson is the firm's senior account executive. 

In addition, New Orleans Affordable Homeownership's web site, according to an internet search, is registered by Trellis Smith and his EC Advertising firm.

Contractor ties

City Council president Jackie Clarkson said the former executive director's ties to both contractors concern her. 

“If there are these ties and you indicated a partnership in one case, I hope there wasn't any favoritism towards them as contractors,” Clarkson said.

It's still unclear exactly when these two contractors started working for NOAH.  According to a March 2007 press release by the Mayor's office of communications, at that time NOAH had remediated nearly 350 homes using 10 contractors.  But according to the city's own records given to WWL last week, there appears to be a conflict.  Only 7 of those 10 contractors did work for the program.

When WWL totaled up the amount of work those contractors did over the duration of the program, the total came to 187 properties.  That is far less than the 350 properties the city had claimed at that time. 

In that press release the former executive director of NOAH, Stacey Jackson, said she was searching for more contractors and would meet with many on the city's certified contractors list.  Tuesday night the city faxed WWL a copy of that list, and neither Hall nor Parish-Dubuclet appeared on it, meaning neither is a certified city contractor.

Eyewitness News went to Trellis Smith's house and business twice on Tuesday.  He wasn't there and by phone said he didn't want to do an interview.

WWL also called Stacey Jackson four times for a comment but she never answered her phone and had no available space to leave a voice mail message.  The only explanation of the program the public has heard from Jackson came last week, when she told the City Council there is no way NOAH misappropriated funds.

“This was a good program,” Jackson said, her voice cracking, “and I'm sorry to get emotional.  This was a really good program and the staff worked hard, and so did the contractors.”

According to the city's records, 35 contractors worked on the home remediation program.  Of those 35, only 10 appear to be on the city's active contractor list and only 11 are in good standing with the Secretary of State. 

City's response

The Nagin administration said it is cross-referencing the list given to Eyewitness News last week, with invoices they paid to contractors.

City officials say they are going through those invoices now and sending inspectors to each property, to see if NOAH performed work.

The city also said it has no active contracts with NOAH and hasn't had any since last year, when city officials said they found problems in the monitoring process.

The city said a few months ago a third party independent auditor found problems with the home remediation program.  While officials said the problems don't appear to be significant, in a letter sent to NOAH last month, the deputy director of the city housing division, Lynn Ashley, wrote that “NOAH has not submitted monthly reports in a timely manner....and failure to do so....may result in sanctions.” 

The city gave NOAH one month to respond and city officials said Tuesday they haven't received that response.

The Mayor's Office of Communications said that Mayor Ray Nagin has, through his recovery office, asked the Department of Housing and Urban Development to look at the home remediation program. 

That is an investigation the city inspector general, Robert Cerasoli, and the FBI have also started.