"It's hard for me," Reyes, 26, told City Council members yesterday as she sobbed. "I'm gonna work hard till the end for this house to be mine."
Reyes is one of dozens of alleged victims of Robert Coyle Sr. - the "slumlord millionaire" and "dream killer" - who promised that she could rent-to-own her home, then defaulted on more than $15 million in bank loans on her house and nearly 300 others in Kensington and Port Richmond.
Coyle, who ran Landvest and other real-estate entities, is the focus of a federal and local fraud investigation.
Reyes' gut-wrenching testimony came shortly after the start of yesterday's hearing at City Hall by the Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless.
Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez, who organized the hearing, credited the Daily News with exposing "the depth of the problems with Coyle's business" in an Oct. 26, 2009, article.
"Almost a year and a half after the Daily News story, little progress has been made and there is a looming threat of concentrated blight if nothing is done," Quinones-Sanchez said yesterday.
She said that she called for the hearing, along with fellow committee member Councilman Frank DiCicco, to "constructively attack this crisis."
Many of Coyle's homes sit rotting and vacant - havens for drug dealers, addicts and vagrants.
"The devastation that one man has been able to inflict on a community is incomprehensible," testified Sandy Salzman, of New Kensington Community Development Corp. "Mr. Coyle has left entire blocks in ruin."
Alan Frank, Coyle's attorney, who did not attend the hearing, placed blame on the banks, particularly Republic Bank. Frank said that Republic Bank pushed Coyle in 2007 to take on additional debt and properties.
"I do not believe that [this mess] was truly the makings of Mr. Coyle," Frank said.
Meanwhile, Republic Bank says that Coyle is the bad guy. In a letter submitted to Council, Republic Bank's attorney, Walter Weir Jr., characterized the bank as "the victim of a multimillion-dollar fraud carried out by Mr. Coyle."
Quinones-Sanchez pressed staffers from the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections to explain why the agency failed to red-flag Coyle as a slumlord, considering the many code violations on his homes. She also said that the city may be able to acquire some of Coyle's properties through condemnation. The city would then be able to work with residents to obtain ownership.
"I'm not going to sit around any longer and wait for the banks to do the right thing," she said.
