Be Aware: The Following Email Was Successfully Sent To The Following Parties, Creating An Eternally Recoverable Record of Who Knew This Housing Fraud Was Happening and Their Role In It; Including but Not Limited To Inaction
All relevant parties at the New Ulm Economic Development Authority (EDA)
New Ulm City Manager Chris Dolton
The Office of the City Manager’s Supervisor, Honorable Mayor Kathleen Backer
HUD Regional Complaint Office – Illinois Region
Minnesota Housing Commissioner, Honorable Jennifer Ho
Local Media Outlet – The New Ulm Journal
I am seeking intervention for discrimination concerning my HUD application in the Brown County, Minnesota office of New Ulm, Minnesota. I am a physically disabled resident and eligible to receive a voucher at this time based on local preference, which would support me in moving forward with needed surgical procedures and disability healthcare that has been delayed far too long due to chronic, systemic crimes against African Americans and disabled citizens in public programs, which serve to make participation impossible—even when you’re qualified, enrolled, and open in the programs.
That is how I became disabled and how I’ve remained in poverty since diagnosis—getting weaker—on public programs that just repeat the cycle of abuse and systems that ignore reports of them, failing to intervene by enforcing the established regulations on their workforce. I want out. I want an opportunity to become physically well and see what I’m able to do for myself, rather than being habitually (forced) led astray by public service employees who decide, for various reasons, that I am not entitled to the same participation in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as them, and who commence to break the law when administering programs to ensure that I never get the opportunity to get up and begin.
The regular courses of action don’t work because they are ignoring African-American and disabled complaints. Please intervene in the Brown County HCV matter—they are unresponsive.
I am a victim of domestic violence and stalking, and I use an address confidentiality program on my ID. State law allows me to do this. HUD and the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program have honored my right to do so for a decade, since 2013.
I am not a renter. I have no lease. I am the resident of a real estate property purchased by a relative who is not a landlord. I pay for the utilities consumed during my residency and protect the property by being its permanent resident. I am the only resident; the owner lives quite far away. That is simply my living situation—not being a renter does not negate my permanent residency.
I have supplied proof of my residency, including utility company bills that show my identity as the resident since 2022.
Additionally, I provided address verification from the local Social Security Administration office.
I also submitted a letter from a state probation officer who monitors my identity and permanent residency. This letter included their contact information, should the housing authority or prospective landlords have any questions about my good standing in probation or need more verification concerning housing.
Furthermore, all the housing authority’s mailings have been received through the postal service because I am a permanent resident of Brown County, at the address they have on file—supported by the documentation I’ve provided.
Despite this, Housing Coordinator Heather Bregel pulled my completed application on August 17th—48 hours after it was submitted to her by housing aide Kellie Roe—and has continued to refuse to process my application. She has threatened to deny my housing application without processing it, stating that I must provide proof of permanent residency, while ignoring all the communications and evidence I have submitted.
Bregel has demanded, in order to move forward, that I must supply proof that she is "comfortable with," which consists of one of two options that do not apply to my situation and have nothing to do with proving my residency.
A.) I can change my state ID to public status at the DMV, despite it being private and protected by law, because I am a domestic violence and stalking victim.
B.) I can develop a fraudulent rental lease, knowing I’m not a renter.
I am clear that HUD has no jurisdiction over DMV matters, and even less so because of my protected class, which they first approved in 2013 and have continued to approve for the decade since.
am clear that HUD is not interested in how applicants pay for their housing outside of the program, or who they know outside of the program, and does not demand information or access to non-residents.
Furthermore: HUD does not require that applicants must already be renters to be eligible for the Housing Choice Voucher program. Such a policy would alter the entire landscape of the program and prompt endless class action lawsuits, given the program’s purpose—to allow vulnerable, low-income individuals to obtain affordable, market-rate housing. Why and how would they qualify for the program if they could already afford what they are applying for?
On August 22nd, 2023, when I discovered by chance that my application had been pulled—and that there was a refusal to process it—and that the Housing Coordinator is making personal demands she knows would harm my safety and intentionally do not apply to my residency, as devices to deny me access to a Housing Choice Voucher I am completely eligible to receive (which is available for me to receive and for which I have been called off the waiting list), I asked for a copy of the policy that authorizes these demands and rejects the proof of residency I supplied, or to be told where online I could print a copy of this policy.
I was denied this information in a telephone conversation. I was denied in response to an emailed request. I have been denied in writing.
The New Ulm EDA has failed to provide any policy authorizing these discriminatory demands or actions. It has also failed to contact the state agent whose information was provided in the letter to verify any genuine concerns or suspicions it may have had.
These are racist, targeted, discriminatory actions intended to exclude me from a program I am fully qualified to participate in—because I am African American—and Heather Bregel is acting in a discriminatory, bad-faith manner within a federal program that requires all regulations to be followed regarding all applicants, applications, participants, and household members.
However, Bregel sent a “respond within 10 days or fail” personal memo letter, edifying what we all already understood, but with racial undertones—saying people cannot live in P.O. boxes, halfway houses, or be staying or living with others (essentially implying leeching). I’m not. None of that applies to me, and she was aware of that before sending this personally created memo.
The memo also did not state that applicants must be renters or that their state ID must show their physical address, especially when they are protected by state law, which says they do not. Nor did it state that residential utilities in the applicant’s name are not proof of residency. It was a waste of time and a distraction from the illegal actions taking place here.
To ensure that her racist scheme was successful, according to the postmark and memo date, Bregel withheld the document for five of the minimum ten days allowed to me (if this were a real action and policy, not a memo enforcing personal desires) before mailing it—allowing me less than 48 hours to respond while promoting the false perception that I was given the standard ten days.
Under Bregel’s administration:
Where all applicants are allotted ten days for a task, I am allotted two days—all while disguising illegal efforts to make my participation and success more impossible, pretending she followed the book. The two days, where there should have been ten, on this fake policy—which is only a personally drafted memo—are equivalent to the demand for a rental lease when only proof of residency is required.
There’s no use in pretending to play by the book with someone who wrote the book on “how to catch a systematic racist commit fraud in public and low-income programs.” Heather Bregel should be fired and replaced with a housing coordinator willing to abide by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s non-discrimination policies.
While I know I have the option to file a Fair Housing complaint—and have done so—those efforts take time, and Bregel has not ceased or desisted from threatening disqualification as of 9/12/23 for noncompliance with her discriminatory and, as far as I’m concerned, illegal demands.
I have lost $2,000 in the form of utilities, apartment hold fees, damage deposits, movers, and other overhead costs in order to respond to the harassment within the limited timelines provided to me, despite their illegality.
I contacted Heather’s direct supervisor, Chris Dolton (included in this email), on 8/28 and left a voicemail on 8/30. There has been no response. Laurie, in the New Ulm EDA, was bullying me when I called for information, as if they were all laughing about it and have no intention of interceding in this illegal policy matter before it is finalized by the Housing Coordinator.
In response, I put all the documents and recorded conversations on the website www.newulmhousingdiscrimination.com so that my complaint is not ignored, my efforts and eligibility and cooperation are not denied, and to demonstrate the refusal of Minnesota professionals to respond to, correct failures, or enforce established regulations on criminal employees and its effect on Minnesota citizens and the state—especially its weakest citizens. I have not failed to do what I’m supposed to do to secure an affordable market-rate rental through the Brown County Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, which I’m eligible to receive.
I am seeking your intercession to contact Bregel or Supervisor and City Manager Dolton and demand the policy that authorizes this delay and threatened denial without application process, or order the processing of the completed application, which she has had on her desk since August 15th, 2023, commence immediately. She needs to be removed. If this is being done to me, she has or will do this to others that qualify for the federal program.
According to 2022 studies, at least 8,000 Minnesota citizens are experiencing homelessness; why are there racist employees in housing programs coordinating loss of housing and homelessness of Minnesota citizens without intervention from the powers that be when it’s reported? Please assist.
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