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Following a startling Washington Post article about D.C.’s tax lien program, which has sent elderly residents from their homes over small tax bills, Mayor Vincent Gray called for a moratorium on the program, saying through a spokesperson he found out about the policy through the piece.

“The Mayor found out about [the Office of the Chief Financial Officer’s] policy on tax-lien sales by reading about it in the Post article yesterday, and he was shocked and outraged by the revelations,” his spokesperson Pedro Ribeiro told reporters in an email.

But as Zoe Tillman of The National Law Journal and Legal Times pointed out on Twitter, the Alliance to Help Owners Maintain Equity sent Gray and Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) a letter about the program last year.

AT HOME – the Alliance to Help Owners Maintain Equity writes to highlight several flaws in the District of Columbia’s current real property tax sale system. We ask for your consideration of these flaws and request an opportunity to work with you in addressing them in a manner that not only ensures fair treatment for homeowners, but also alleviates the resulting heavy flow of litigation and adverse impacts on District government resources.

The current tax sale system deprives affected homeowners, many of whom are elderly or economically disadvantaged, of fair treatment, including constitutional protections.

Ribeiro told DCist that the letter did indeed come in last year, but through a “borderline mistake” was sent to the OCFO. He explained that, because the mayor gets thousands of pieces of correspondence every week, they are sorted. The person who sorted the letter determined it should be sent to the OCFO, who then told the mail-sorter they were taking care of the issue, according to Ribeiro.

In retrospect, Ribeiro said the letter should have been sent to the D.C. Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs.

He added that, unlike the Post story, the letter did not cite specific examples of people being affected by the program, like the 76-year-old Marine veteran who was removed from his home over what began as a $134 tax lien. If the letter had contained that, maybe it would have moved on to the right place, Ribeiro said, adding that it “is an important letter.”

Evans, who also is named as a recipient on the letter, has yet to respond to DCist’s request for comment. Update: Greater Greater Washington contributor Ken Archer pointed out on Twitter that Amy Nix from AARP testified about the content of the letter to Evans, as well as Councilmembers David Catania and Vincent Orange, last October.