BRADBURY TO GIVE AMOUNT OF HUD SUBSIDY TO CHARITY.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer

Come September, when he gets the $639 monthly federal subsidy he receives for renting a small house on his Ojai ranch to his 78-year-old mother, Ventura County District Attorney Michael Bradbury is going to write a similar check to Many Mansions or another local charity.

Bradbury, who earns $131,804 as the county's top prosecutor, said Tuesday there is nothing improper about his mother, Marie, turning over her Department of Housing and Urban Development subsidy, nor is it an abuse of a federal program intended to help low-income people.

``There's nothing wrong with it,'' said Bradbury, adding he will not force his mother to give up the housing assistance simply to dispel concerns over the appearance of their landlord-tenant relationship.

``My mother is the one who has the (federal assistance) rights, not me,'' he said. ``I want to make sure she maintains those rights because if something happens to me - if I drop dead tomorrow - she'd be in desperate straits.''

But Bradbury said he now plans to stop keeping the money for himself.

``My wife and I have decided to donate a like sum to charity each month,'' he said, mentioning the nonprofit Many Mansions and Conejo Valley Senior Concerns as possible recipients.

Marie Bradbury has lived in a two-bedroom home on her son's four-acre horse ranch since 1995, and has paid more than $15,000 in housing subsidies to her son and landlord.

She receives about $11,000 a year in Social Security, disability and housing assistance - an income that puts her well below the $24,100 threshold at which individuals qualify for this program, according to HUD officials.

Bradbury said he accepted the subsidy, which pays for 70 percent of his mother's $913 monthly rent, but has never collected the remaining 30 percent from his mom, who has received housing assistance for more than 20 years.

HUD's Section 8 program has been helping low-income people find affordable housing since 1974. It now serves about 3.7 million people nationwide at a cost of $4.7 billion to taxpayers, officials say.

In Ventura County, five separate housing authorities disburse 5,400 housing vouchers each month, benefiting a total of 13,600 individuals and family members, said Douglas Tapking, executive director of the Area Housing Authority of Ventura County.

The need for these subsidies is so high that 5,000 people are on a waiting list, each facing a delay of five to seven years.

Tapking said only about 3 percent of the subsidized housing arrangements handled by his office involve relatives.

``Bradbury's not breaking the law,'' Tapking said. ``Mr. Bradbury in this particular case is providing very nice housing for his mother. She could take that (voucher) certificate and go to Florida tomorrow.''

Because of abuses of the system in Pennsylvania, however, HUD officials are scheduled to implement new regulations next month prohibiting further landlord-tenant agreements whereby people collect Section 8 funds by renting to relatives, said Alex Sachs, a spokesman for HUD's Federal Housing Assistance Program in Washington, D.C.

The new regulations are not retroactive and would apply to the Bradburys only if they were to revise their rental agreement or draft a new one, he said.

If that were to happen, Marie Bradbury would either have to give up the subsidy or move off her son's property.

Sachs said HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo is studying whether more regulations are needed in cases where wealthy landlords collect housing subsidies from relatives.

He said those concerns were first raised several months before the Bradbury case came to light.

``There is a potential for abuse of the program with relatives renting to relatives where taxpayer dollars are going to support someone who doesn't need it and money is going into their relatives' pockets,'' Sachs said.

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PHOTO (color) Michael Bradbury

``There's nothing wrong with it.''