Ground Zero Mosque Imam a Deadbeat Slumlord: 'All He Likes Is Money'

These Ground Zero Mosque developers are sure looking good these days. On one hand we have a guy who's been arrested at least seven times and who owes New York City $224,000 in back taxes. Now we find out the "spiritual leader" traipsing around the world on our dime raising money for this abomination is a slumlord, according to tenants of his apartments in New Jersey.

Is it any wonder Michael Bloomberg and Barack Obama loves this guy? He sounds like a typical liberal.

He's the religious leader of the planned, controversial Ground Zero mosque -- but across the Hudson, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is known as an alleged slumlord.

At buildings in Union City and Palisades Park, where Rauf reportedly got tax dollars to renovate low-income apartments, tenants yesterday said their gripes about their lousy housing conditions have been ignored.

"Why doesn't he help the tenants he has before he builds a new place, claiming he wants to help people?" said a disgusted Jamie Barillas, who lives in a Rauf-owned apartment at 2206 Central Ave. in Union City.

"Nothing gets done. We have to go through City Hall to get things done. . . . He doesn't care about his tenants," she said.

Barillas said that bedbugs plague the building -- but that when she tried to get building managers to respond, they claimed they didn't have the money to hire an exterminator.

Tenant Vilma Then chided Rauf as greedy.

"All he likes is money," she said. "Nothing ever gets fixed. I complain to the super, and all he says is that he has the same problem."

Vilma Then said she lived at Rauf's building around the corner until a fire forced her to move to 2206 Central Ave. She said her current situation is similar to her old digs, where she had a stove that was more like "a roach den."

She also complained that Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan -- who has been the imam's spokesperson while he is touring overseas -- "listens to what you have to say and writes things down and leaves -- and nothing gets done."

"She gives nothing but false promises," the resident said.

The Record newspaper of Hackensack reported that Rauf won taxpayer-funded support for his New Jersey buildings from powerful politicians in the state, including Sen. Bob Menendez when he was the mayor of Union City.

The projects were plagued by financial problems as well as tenant complaints, the paper said.

A spokesman for Menendez said the senator did not have a close working relationship with Rauf.

Sure, Bob, run and hide. What a man.

Cynthia Balko, 48, of Union City — a longtime tenant of Rauf’s — said she’s had to live with rats, leaks and no heat: “I don’t have anything nice to say about the man.”

She finds it hard to believe Rauf’s going to build a world-class Islamic community center, with fitness facilities, auditorium, restaurant, library, culinary school and art studios, as well as a Sept. 11 memorial and space for Muslim prayer services.

“He can’t even repair the bells in the hallway. He doesn’t take care of his properties. But he’s going to take care of a mosque?”