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Twenty-four people who are accused of lying to get $250,000 worth of federal housing money were arrested on felony warrants Thursday in a crackdown by an interagency task force of federal, state and county agents.

Most tried to hide part of their income from the federal government or lied about the number of people in their families in order to get more money said Mike Wilson chief investigator with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of the Inspector General in Fort Worth.

Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed said federal housing dollars are meant to help people achieve the American dream of owning their own home, and "those who commit fraud step on those dreams."

The arrests, Reed added, send a message to those who want to commit fraud: "If you do, you'll be investigated, indicted and prosecuted."

All 24 were participants in HUD's housing voucher program, also known as Section 8. One had applied for assistance through the Housing Authority of Bexar County while the rest went through the San Antonio Housing Authority.

The largest case involved a nurse at the downtown Baptist Medical Center who got $24,000 more than she deserved over a five-year period, said Juan Juarez, a federal housing investigator in San Antonio.

"She had two jobs, "Juarez said, "but she only reported one" on her income certification form. She was charged with a state felony of executing a document by deception.

The number of people charged with housing fraud has been on the rise the past two years, he said, thanks to a computer system that allows housing authority workers to cross-check an applicant's reported income with a state database.

The Social Security Administration which participated in Thursday's roundup, said some of the defendants in the housing fraud also had illegally claimed $125,000 in Social Security benefits.

Since federal law denies benefits to fugitive felons, Juarez said, "The minute they were indicted, they were considered fugitive felons."

Wilson said cheating takes a human as well as financial toll because every dollar obtained by fraud is one less that could go to deserving individuals.

Almost 8,000 families in Bexar County are on waiting lists to get into the voucher program.

He said the arrests created openings for 24 of them.

Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits increase automatically each year based on the rise in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), from the third quarter of the prior year to the corresponding period of the current year. This year's increase in the CPI-W was 3.3 percent.

The 3.3 percent Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) will begin with benefits that nearly 49 million Social Security beneficiaries receive in January 2007. Increased payments to more than 7 million Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries will begin on December 29.

Some other changes that take effect in January of each year are based on the increase in average wages. Based on that increase, the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax (taxable maximum) will increase to $97,500 from $94,200. Of the estimated 163 million workers who will pay Social Security taxes in 2007, about 11 million will pay higher taxes as a result of the increase in the taxable maximum in 2007.

Information about Medicare changes for 2007 can be found at www.cms.hhs.gov.

Note: Copies of most SSA press releases, as well as other Social Security information and statistics,
are available at SSA's Internet site, Social Security Online, at http://www.socialsecurity.gov

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