NY: Dozens of confidential city public housing tenant records found on Brooklyn street

[kirniki <kirniki () gmail com>]

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/03/18/2009-03-18_dozens_of_confidential_city_public_housi.html

Dozens of confidential files with city public housing residents' birth
dates, Social Security numbers, and eviction notices were dumped on an
East New York street over the weekend.

City Housing Authority officials are investigating to determine how
the files ended up scattered along Atlantic Ave. near Pennsylvania
Ave.
"Are you serious? Oh, my God!" said Linden Houses resident Wanda
Maldonado, 35, when told by the Daily News that her address, Social
Security number, birth dates and phone numbers wound up on the street.
"How are they just going to dump out our documents like that on the
street?"
Even more alarming, Maldonado's three teenagers' Social Security
numbers, schools and birth dates were on the 2007 "Occupant Affidavit
of Income," on one of the forms found on the street.

"Anybody can just pick it up off the street and use my Social Security
number to mess up my name. I never thought they would ever do
something like that," said Maldonado, who has been living in her
Wortman Ave. apartment for 10 years.

The documents first appeared on the street on Sunday, according to
local residents who have seen people picking up some of the papers,
raising concerns about identity theft.
"I've seen people picking them off the ground and putting them in
their pockets," said resident Paul Williams, 40.
The News found documents dating to 2006 lying on sidewalks and in
gutters. Some papers detailed residents' rents, court orders, lease
agreements and letters of lease termination.

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