WASILLA -- In less than a year's time, residents at Wasilla's senior housing campus have seen their rent rise as much as $175, a stiff hike that puts the facility's rates higher than similar facilities in the Valley.

That rent spike -- as much as a 36 percent increase for some -- has triggered a critical report by a state senior-care watchdog. The report is the second in as many weeks criticizing Wasilla Area Seniors Inc., the nonprofit that manages the housing.

After interviewing more than 50 concerned residents, assistant long-term care ombudsman Lisa Merrill said she found two recent rent increases "are not justified" under the terms of some residents' rental agreements with the center. Those terms appear to allow managers to increase rents only if utility costs go up.

Resident Ronnie Frost paid $430 a month in rent when she moved to Raven Tree Court in 2001. By last September, she paid $485.

Then Frost was hit with a $75 increase in October, followed just 10 months later in August with a $100 hike.

Now Frost pays $660 -- the maximum allowed under federal law for low-income senior housing.

"We figured on raises, but never in the amount they have been and so frequently," she said during an interview at her apartment.

Robin Hall, executive director of Wasilla Area Seniors Inc., said by e-mail late last week that the organization has no comment on the ombudsman's findings.

Rental agreements are "under review at this time," Hall wrote. She did not respond to requests for additional information on that subject.

Wasilla Area Seniors Inc., or WASI, manages the largest senior housing campus in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough with five buildings that house 129 one- and two- bedroom units just off Knik-Goose Bay Road.

The group, a nonprofit, runs the Floyd D. Smith Senior Citizens Center, a central hub where seniors can come for meals, haircuts and other services.

PROBLEMS SURFACE

It is also manages the senior housing, which is financed through a limited partnership with investors Wells Fargo and The Richman Group. Wasilla seniors gets a 7 percent share of gross income as a fee for managing the 129 units, Hall has said.

The ombudsman's office found several problems with the way the seniors' group handled the rent increase, according to Merrill's report.

For one, some tenants had rental agreements listing utility costs as the only reason for a rent hike, Merrill said. But residents in May got a notice that cited increasing costs of "utilities, insurance and/or taxes," as the reason their rent was going up Aug. 1, Merrill found.

An amended agreement dated Aug. 8 -- days after the increase went into effect -- had been changed to add inflation as a reason for an increase, according to the report.

Further, the money raised by the rent increase more than covered the expenses cited, according to information in Merrill's report.

Last October's rent increase would have generated about $102,600 a year, according to the report. The August increase is expected to generate $136,800 a year.

But Matanuska Electric Association told Merrill that electric costs actually decreased by $2,392 in four buildings over the last year and rose slightly in another, according to her report. Enstar reported that gas prices in five buildings rose by $6,600 in 2008 and $20,600 in 2007.

Property taxes did increase by more than $30,100 from 2006 through 2007, according to Merrill's report. Most of that increase -- more than $28,700 -- resulted from Hall's failure to file paperwork to get a low-income housing tax credit on two buildings at the complex, according to the report.

HINTS IN CORRESPONDENCE

Asked for justification of the increases, Wasilla seniors "offered no specific explanation," Merrill wrote, citing "Owner's requirements" and "Owner's private information."

Correspondence between the ombudsman's office and Wasilla seniors offers some hints but little in the way of explanation.

Hall in June referred to assisted living units sitting vacant all year, creating "an approximate $150,000 deficit," according to board meeting minutes cited in a late August letter from state long-term care ombudsman Robert Dreyer.

Those same minutes mentioned a successful attempt to lower the group's loan payments on senior housing, Dreyer said.

In July, meeting minutes show Hall noted that building co-owners - Richman, specifically -- put the facility on a "watch list" because incoming rent wasn't bringing in enough money, Dreyer wrote. A representative from Richman was not available for comment.

Several residents wondered if utilities aren't that much higher, where is their rent money going?

Frost, briefly a member of the board's finance committee before resigning, said she thinks administrators just aren't managing finances very well.

"I'm not calling anybody a crook, but I'm saying there's got to be misappropriation," she said. "If there's not, give us a clue."

MUM'S THE WORD

Officials in an Aug. 18 letter to residents refused to provide specific financial information.

They also turned down requests for that information from the ombudsman's office.

Wasilla's rents now exceed those at Palmer's housing campus, and at The Birches, a 60-unit private senior housing development off Wasilla-Fishhook Road, according to information provided by both.

A one-bedroom, low-income apartment like Frost's costs $660.

The same apartment at Colony Estates, which opened in 1998 in affiliation with Palmer Senior Citizens Center Inc., costs $481, though residents pay electric bills, according to a manager.

Palmer hasn't raised rents since opening its housing, office manager Rachel Greenberg said.

The rent report follows one released last week by the ombudsman's office.

In that report, Merrill found the center could have done more for a disabled veteran who complained sewer gas leaking into his room was making him sick. He moved out.

Dreyer said his office is available to mediate the conflict over rents but has no other authority.

"We found enough things that troubled us if I was in their position, I would take it seriously and look into it and take a self gut check," he said.