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Investigation over Sales of Low-Income Housing

POINT TOWNSHIP — One of the region’s largest construction companies faces questions about how it spent taxpayer dollars. State and federal agencies ...

POINT TOWNSHIP -- One of the region's largest construction companies faces questions about how it spent taxpayer dollars.

State and federal agencies say the Yoder Group from Turbotville used grant money to build homes for low-income buyers.

Authorities believe the company then sold most of those homes to people who don't qualify as low-income.

One whistleblower calls what happened in Northumberland County “a misuse of taxpayer dollars” and an "unnecessary government subsidy for a homebuilder."

Just across the line from Northumberland borough into Point Township sit the homes of the Kings Pointe development.

The Yoder Group received grant money to build 14 homes there for low-income buyers.

“They're very beautiful. They would be a great place to live with your family,” said Stacy Bickel of Point Township.

“I wouldn't think they were subsidized.  They look like regular housing to me,” said Barbara Borden of Northumberland.

Point Township's board of supervisors got the grant from the state in 2004 and then hired the Yoder Group to build and sell the homes.

Seven years later, supervisors learned Yoder sold just four units to low-income buyers.

“He needed to sell the units because the credit had dried up. People who had a low enough income that they would have qualified for the program were not able to get a loan,” Point Township Solicitor Richard Shoch said.

“We feel that we have been duped as well as the agencies that have provided the money to it,” said Point Township Supervisor Randall Yoxheimer.

Duped, because 10 of the 14 Kings Pointe homes were sold to people, including a doctor, who don`t qualify as low-income.

The Kings Pointe homes sold for an average of $145,000. That’s almost double the $82,000 selling price called for in the grant.

“This grant money was brought forth to help the low-income individuals. The supervisors did nothing to oversee it,” said Mark Heintzelman of Point Township.

Heintzleman is a former Point Township codes inspector. He says he blew the whistle on this case and claims both the builder and the township supervisors are at fault.

And now the state`s Department of Community and Economic Development is trying to recover the $381,000 in taxpayer grant money spent building Kings Pointe.

The DCED filed suit against the Yoder Group and Point Township last year, calling the failure to sell homes to low income buyers a breach of contract.

“Certainly we`re angry. We`ve been angry,” Yoxheimer said. “We`re the ones being looked at as the scapegoats for all of this.”

We went to the Yoder Group's headquarters in Turbotville, but the company had no comment.

Heintzelman calls what happened in Point Township a crime.

He says that back in September, he received a letter from federal investigators confirming, “an on-going law enforcement investigation.”

“Should somebody go to jail over this?  Yes. Will somebody go to jail over this?  I don`t know,” Heintzelman said.

The Yoder Group has built several apartment complexes and homes for low income buyers in five counties in northeastern and central Pennsylvania.

A DCED spokesperson says the department is reviewing all of the Yoder Group's contracts where the company received grants to build low-income housing.

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