The Pimps of Mississippi
The performance of Birmingham's Balch & Bingham law firm with a pandemic-related rent-assistance program in Mississippi doesn't seem to be getting much better with time, according to a report at banbalch.com. Under the headline "Update: 'Pimps of Mississippi' Rental Assistance Debacle Still Turning Tricks," Publisher K.B. Forbes writes:
The latest available data from the U.S. Department of Treasury shows that contractual cronyism appears to be inefficient while making Balch & Bingham generous fees.
At the end of November, Balch, the “Pimps of Mississippi,” had disbursed a mere 43 percent of the $186 million cash cow, not even the half-way mark!
The embattled firm looks like fools when compared to Harrison County, which disbursed all of their resources to those in need, 100 percent, according to the federal data.
As The Washington Post reported in August:
Balch and [the Mississippi Home Corporation] agreed to a $3.8 million budget for the firm to help administer the program, including a charge of $135-per-hour for the review of 30,000 applications, according to a March letter from Balch to MHC. In addition to the review of applications, Balch’s role in the rental relief program was meant to include helping draft rules and regulations, “designing and overseeing program administration,” and training staff, according to the letter.
All of this includes some sobering irony, Forbes notes:
This is the same firm that evicted a Habitat for Humanity tenant at the height of the pandemic.
And people really wonder why Balch is heckled and called pimps, whores, or worse?
