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At the property in Northeast, many of the tenants were placed there by the Transitional Housing Corporation, a faith-based organization that helps homeless families. THC and a city agency were aware of the tenants' complaints about the property and had set up a meeting between the landlord and tenants to resolve issues. After we questioned THC and had placed calls to Hagler, he moved to fix many of the problems at the apartment building.

This project struggled right from the start.

Peaceoholics had never developed affordable housing. It had no construction experience and no loans from private lenders to get the work done.

Still, the housing agency delivered nearly $5 million in funding, with what appears to be very little oversight after that.

It's true that two city agencies that promised to support the project withdrew their support after Vincent Gray became mayor. But much appears to have gone wrong before then -- and after.

In terms of coworkers doing business together, the city is now evaluating this question. We'll see what happens.

Mayor Vincent C. Gray said in an interview today that it's too premature to send to the Attorney General's Office. He said his administration has referred the matter to the Office of the Inspector General and will make a determination after the findings.

Thanks for your question.

The district's housing agency in recent years has funded a string of ill-fated affordable housing projects. We've written about several of them, prompting investigations by HUD.

This latest project, however, was largely funded with local housing money.

The City Council ultimately has authority to review and approve locally funded deals, but in this case, the course of the project was altered under the noses of council members.

We have more stories coming. If you have any thoughts, tips or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you.

One of the things that likely went wrong in the Peaceoholics project is that there was no competitive bidding. John E. Hall, the new director of the housing agency, said competitive bidding at the time was not required but it should have been.

Thanks for your comment.

When we called the housing agency about this, officials responded immediately and appeared to give us every record they had in hand. Of course, we appreciated the speedy response and the willingness to share records.

The problem is that housing officials appear to be struggling to figure out exactly what happened themselves. There's a new administration in the housing agency, and this deal started four years ago.

We're still waiting to see if fundamental documents exist -- property appraisals, draw requests, receipts, invoices etc.

Council member Jim Graham has requested most of this already, but has so far received very little.

This a frequent criticism of journalists, in general.

As a taxpayer, one would hope potholes get fixed and trash gets picked up. When those basic services aren't provided, there's a story. We would hope funds are spent correctly and with oversight. When that doesn't happen, we feel obligated to report it. 

Yes, we can do a better job of reporting some of the good work that dedicated government employees do. We'll be on the lookout for extraordinary accomplishments.

There was a hearing, but many of these issues did not come to light. This took a thorough inspection of deeds and records. Council member Jim Graham began asking more questions in October. And Council member Michael Brown says he, too, had questions. This scrutiny was taking place behind the scenes; not in a hearing. The Department of Community Housing and Development was gathering records and questioning employees.