Owner of Housing Units Subsidized by U.S. Is Probed

Congressional investigators are looking into the dealings of a Santa Monica-based owner of thousands of government-subsidized apartments as part of their continuing probe of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it was learned Tuesday.

HUD’s Washington headquarters has called on all its district offices to supply “a list of the projects which are currently owned or were ever owned or managed” by A. Bruce Rozet and five of his associates.

The request was made on behalf of Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee. Gonzalez has announced plans to hold hearings on HUD.

Drug-Infested Housing

Rozet’s companies have ownership interests in up to 50,000 units of government-subsidized housing nationwide, including such troubled projects as Geneva Towers in San Francisco, Ujima Village in Los Angeles and Tyler House in Washington that have been criticized as among the most distressed and drug-infested in the country.

The House committee is investigating projects owned or managed by Rozet and his longtime business colleagues, Deane Earl Ross, William Harrison, Stephen D. Moses and William Sweetzer, in addition to Jimmy K. Bell, a former high-ranking HUD official who is now an executive within Rozet’s companies.

“Sounds like a real fishing expedition,” Max Perry, general counsel for Rozet’s Associated Financial Corp. of Santa Monica, said Tuesday when told of the HUD memo to district offices.

Rozet, a syndicator, finds investors to put money into limited partnerships that buy HUD projects, thus helping to infuse them with cash for improvement. In exchange, the investors receive valuable tax credits.

Rozet, who is a heavy contributor to Democratic politicians, has been an influential voice in national housing policy, often appearing before congressional committees that have HUD oversight.

In the memo dated last month, Donald A. Kaplan, director of HUD’s office of Multifamily Housing Management, said House Banking Committee staff members were seeking information about the transfer of 66 projects in 1983 to National Investment Development Corp., a company controlled by Rozet or his associates.

It is not known why the committee is looking into the transfer. But separate documents obtained by The Times show that HUD’s inspector general investigated the transfer of another 60 projects to Rozet-controlled companies in 1984.

Collusion Allegation

According to a report on the findings of that investigation, an anonymous caller alleged that there had been collusion between Rozet and HUD. The complaint charged that Bell, then deputy director of the Office of Multifamily Housing Management, approved the transfer.

Bell quit HUD in 1986 and now works for a Rozet company, Housing Resource Management. Bell could not be reached.

The 1984 inspector general report noted that the transfer of the projects to Rozet-controlled companies “appears to deviate from established procedures.” But the report also noted that the terms of the deal would “greatly benefit the taxpayers and tenants of the projects.”