(source: thetimesherald.com) If true, the allegations against Lorena Loren, the former director of the St. Clair Housing Commission, are disturbing on a number of levels. Federal investigators allege Loren embezzled more than $300,000 from the housing commission between 2008 and 2016, when she retired.

Most heartbreaking is that the money that Loren allegedly misdirected into her own pockets and those of some of her family members was meant to help low income people afford decent housing. Stealing from poor people is a special kind of despicable. Stealing from low-income families to buy a range of goods worth $165,000 and ranging from beauty supplies to alcoholic beverages, which investigators say Loren did with a housing commission credit card, is lower than despicable.

Beside abusing the credit card, investigators say Loren abused Section 8 housing vouchers to pay herself and family members rent for apartments and tenants that didn’t exist and to pay themselves to live in their own dwellings...