audio, stills, text and or video: Go to zReportage.com to see more - For years, the poor have lined up at the county's door for help, and county caseworkers have responded by sending them to hazardous and neglected places. There, they were forced to breathe moldy air, step over unmopped puddles of human waste or sleep on mattresses infested with bedbugs. William A. ''Hoe'' Brown, chairman of the Tampa Port Authority, has been running an illegal rental property that Tampa's code enforcement director calls ''deplorable'' and ''not fit for human habitation.'' The Homeless Recovery program, a little-known government initiative launched in 1989 to provide safe havens for the poor spent millions of tax dollars housing the homeless, including families in filthy, bug and crime-ridden slums. Homeless Recovery's managers said they did not have the resources to inspect rental properties where they sent clients.''It's shocking. People shouldn't have to live like that,'' said Jake Slater, Tampa's director of neighborhood empowerment, who termed the squalor among the worst he's ever seen. .The Tampa Bay Times staff won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting this story.
© Daniel Wallace/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

July 6, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - Campaign signs for William ''Hoe'' Brown cover a broken window on an adjacent building as MICHAEL LENTZ, 32, sits on the doorstep of the room he rents in the apartment complex at 106 Stanley St. owned by Brown.
© Daniel Wallace/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

July 6, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - VICTOR GONZALEZ, 67, brushes bites in the bug infested room he rents at 106 Stanley St.
© Daniel Wallace/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

July 6, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - Roaches and bugs swarm along the walls inside the room rented by Victor Gonzalez, 67, at 106 Stanley Street in Seminole Heights. William Hoe Brown, connected GOP fundraiser and Port Authority board chairman, has been operating rooming houses in Seminole Heights that code enforcement officials call deplorable and unfit for human habitation.
© Daniel Wallace/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

Aug. 2, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - SHARMEL TROUPE and RYAN GORMLEY play with nine-month-old JANA before her afternoon nap in their Nebraska Avenue motel room. The couple has bounced around among a handful of motels after leaving one of former Tampa Port Authority Chairman Hoe Brown's illegal rental properties late last year.
© Carolina Hidalgo/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

July 8, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - MICHAEL LENTZ, 32, walks past a shed converted into an apartment where he rents a room in a nearby trailer at 106 Stanley Street. William Hoe Brown, connected GOP fundraiser and Port Authority board chairman, has been operating rooming houses in Seminole Heights that code enforcement officials call deplorable and unfit for human habitation.
© Will Vragovic/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

July 11, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - WILLIAM ''HOE'' BROWN talks on a cell phone at the rear of his property at 106 W. Stanley Street. Code Enforcement discovered trailers on the property earlier this week that were being rented illegally and deemed them unfit for human habitation. Brown, a top GOP fundraiser and the chairman of the Tampa Port Authority, claimed that he was unaware of the conditions in the trailers, despite the fact that his office was located at the same address.
© Edmund D. Fountain/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

July 11, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - A Tampa Police officer talks with a resident at 106 W. Stanley Street. The property is owned by Tampa Port Authority Chairman and prominent GOP fundraiser William ''Hoe'' Brown. Brown keeps an office at the property but has also created apartments inside of the building.
© Edmund D. Fountain/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

July 11, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - A home owned by William ''Hoe'' Brown at 710 N. Newport Avenue. This property sits immediately behind a gym that he owns on Cass Street.
© Edmund D. Fountain/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

July 6, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - MICHAEL LENTZ, 32, sits in the room he rents at 106 Stanley St.
© Daniel Wallace/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

Aug. 6, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - People line up outside of Hillsborough Homeless Recovery.
© Eve Edelheit/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

Oct. 23, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - A sign in the lobby of the Good Samaritan Inn on Florida Ave. The inn is one of several places Hillsborough County's homeless recovery agency sent clients to.
© Carolina Hidalgo/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

Nov. 21, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - EARL GADSON poses for a portrait in his room at the Good Samaritan Inn on Florida Avenue.
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Nov. 15, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - KAIYA CRUZ, 6, leans over to speak to her brother, SAM, 5, center, while ALEX, 4, watches their television screen at their Tampa Heights home. Because Sam is deaf, Kaiya said she has to lean in close for him to hear her.
© Carolina Hidalgo/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

Nov. 21, 2013 - Tampa, Florida, U.S. - LAWRENCE TOOMEY poses for a portrait in his room at the Good Samaritan Inn on Florida Avenue.
© Carolina Hidalgo/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

Nov. 15, 2013 - St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S. - CURTIS KINGCADE was sent by a Hillsborough County agency to live in a former assisted living facility which had its license stripped because of a litany of problems.
© Chris Zuppa/Tampa Bay Times/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press.