On Monday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended the Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority from receiving federal disaster recovery funds. Since Hurricanes Irma and Maria, VIHFA has received nearly $1.9 billion in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funding, more than $20,000 for every resident of this Territory. Almost nine years later, less than a third of the funding has been spent. HUD found that VIHFA completed just two percent of single-family rental rehabilitation projects, and that none of the planned single-family and multi-family housing developments was completed. Behind every one of those numbers is a family still living in disrepair.
These findings are blunt and excruciating to the people of the Virgin Islands. We, however, can not pretend that this letter came out of nowhere. I know the facts better than anyone in this race, because as United States Attorney for the Virgin Islands, my office indicted VIHFA’s former chief operating officer, the official who oversaw our disaster recovery programs, that is as the center of this issue. He was later convicted of bank fraud, money laundering, and criminal conflict of interest for taking $107,000 from a contractor in a scheme that defrauded the taxpayers he was sworn to serve. When I said then that no one who exploits our people’s suffering would be above the law, I meant it — I didn’t describe the problem.
The stakes of VIHFA’s suspension could not be higher. Roughly $1.3 billion in recovery assistance that Congress intended for rebuilding homes, our electrical grid and infrastructure now hang in the balance. The Virgin Islands needs a representative in Congress with a record of leadership, credibility, and demonstrated success. Families waiting on recovery dollars cannot rebuild their homes on grievance. Our recovery runs through Washington, not away from it. If we respond to HUD’s suspension with defensiveness and finger-pointing, we will lose the appeal. If we respond with a serious, verifiable plan to restore compliance, we can win.
Here is what I would do as your Delegate to Congress. First, I would be an honest broker with HUD. The Territory has 30 days to respond to HUD’s findings, and the response cannot be a press release. The response must be a compliance roadmap that includes independent financial controls, genuine fraud risk management, procurement reform, and third-party monitoring where necessary. I have spent almost 20 years serving within the federal system, the last three of which I served as a Presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed U.S. Attorney. I know what federal agencies need to see before they release funds as I have enforced those standards myself. If I am successful in the upcoming primary, I will use my federal experience to credibly convince HUD that the Virgin Islands is capable of accountability as I have done before.
Second, if elected as your delegate, I will work across the aisle to sustain our recovery without regard to which party holds the White House. HUD’s suspension was issued by a Republican administration citing a prosecution my office brought under a Democratic administration. Accountability is not partisan, and neither am I. My record will allow me to sit down with HUD Secretary Scott Turner, appropriators in both parties, and the Inspector General’s Office where I’ll be received as a partner in fixing the problem.
Third, I would fight to protect these and future HUD funds. Suspension is not forfeiture. Congress appropriated these funds after the people of the Virgin Islanders suffered two major catastrophes.
The failures of an agency’s management must not become a sentence imposed on families who did nothing wrong. I would press for a corrective-action pathway that restores the flow of funds under strengthened oversight and for restructuring of program administration that gets recovery dollars to residents faster.
Let me be clear about the deeper lesson. For years, Virgin Islanders have been told that our problems in Washington are about who we know. This suspension, however, proves that our standing in Washington rises or falls on how we perform. Federal credibility is not inherited nor is it rhetorical. It is earned, grant by grant, audit by audit, certification by certification. It is the stewardship that is the missing ingredient in our recovery.
I have spent my career earning the federal government’s trust the hard way: delivering results. As your Delegate, I would put that trust to work to bring VIHFA into compliance, to protect the $1.3 billion our families are owed, and to make sure the next letter the Virgin Islands receives from Washington announces compliance, not a suspension. The choice in this election has never been clearer. We can keep electing people who describe our problems, or who blames the federal relationship itself, or we can elect someone who has already proven she will do everything to solve them.
Delia L. Smith is a candidate for Delegate to Congress. She served as the first native, female Virgin Islander appointed United States Attorney for the District of the Virgin Islands.
