Letter of apology from St. Francis Catholic Worker
Frank Cordaro
From: Steve Jacobs <Sfhc...@aol.com>
Date: Jan 22, 2008 4:46 PM
Dear fellow Catholic Workers and supporters of the the St. Francis CW
of Columbia, MO;
It is with deep sadness that I write this letter to you because
I know it will come as a schock to you, as it did to us. My wife, Lana
Jacobs has left the St. Francis CW community and moved to St. Louis.
She left because she sensed correctly that she was going to be asked
to step aside from community life and because she had been confronted
about lying and concealing information about the St. Francis House,
Lois Bryant House and Loaves and Fishes financial accounts, which she
controlled until the last 3 months.
In September of 2007 we were faced with several disconnection
notices on utilities for the above places and she was months behind
insurance bills for cars and late on house phone bills etc. And while
investigating why these were late, we decided to have our daughter
Rachael, take over the books which were in disarray. At first, we
thought it was because Lana was chronically stressed out from
overwork. However, we discovered all of our donations that had been
given for the building fund to contruct additional rooms onto the mens
house were gone. We could account for about $20,000 of it for
materials used in construction but there were 10's of thousands of
dollars unaccounted for. Lana told us that she had spent it on paying
for numerous poor folks utility bills, their rents and medications,
some of whom were former guests in our houses of hospitality and some
who might otherwise be evicted from public housiing. A few checks and
receipts seemed to confirm some of these unauthorized expenditures but
didn't account for still larger sums that were missing. We also found
numerous times when she juggled money from one account, like when the
Soup Kitchen account was too low to pay bills, she would take money
from St. Francis or Lois Bryant accounts and transfer funds and vice
versa.
Then we discovered that in 2005, she secretly took out a "quit
claim" on property held in our Charitable Trust, removing the Lois
Bryant House property from out trust and registering it as her
personal property. She then used that deed to obtain a personal loan
from a local businessman for $30,000. She arranged to pay him back for
5 years at $700 a month. We only discovered this a few weeks ago in
December when he sent a letter to us asking why he hadn't been paid
since June of last year.
We've had a couple intervention type meetings in which various
community members confronted her with her secret unauthorized
financial dealings and the day before one of those scheduled meetings,
she took an overdose of 12 sleeping pills, leaving another 108 pills
in the bottle. She was lethargic but rousable but I called an
ambulance and had her admitted to a local hospital for 3 or 4 days.
Lana is a very intelligent woman and it was obvious to me that she
took the meds to avoid the confrontation at the meeting from community
members whom she had been deceiving.
As the weeks passed we kept digging through our records and
found that she had been sending out fund raising letters without our
knowledge and asking for donations to be sent to her in care of a
secret P O Box 187 instead of to our mailing address where all our
donations and bills are supposed to be sent. Other meetings followed
where CW community members voiced their frustrations and
disappointment with her and her secretive back channel finances. All
Lana had to do was to tell us what was happening with our finances, so
we could decide as a group, whether to take funds from our building
fund so we could remain solvent. She evidently was too proud to do
that because then we'd discover how many debts she had created for us
and find out how much money was missing. So, she robbed Peter to pay
Paul, so to speak, and tried to cover her tracks by concealing it from
us.
There was an initial concern of not wanting to disclose this to
all the people who've supported our work with the poor over these last
24 years. After all, who wants to air dirty laundry in public? But, I
and the remaining CW's here believe that transparency and truth are
virtues to be honored, no matter what the consequences, because at
least knowing the truth of a situation can guide subsequent actions
and we felt our donors were owed the truth, who no doubt feel stunned
and betrayed. Believe me, we know the feeling. We do not doubt that
this betrayal will alienate and cause many folks and former donors to
cut all ties with us. Who could blame them? Accordingly we will remove
anyone from our mailing list who wish no further contact.
Those of us who remain are hurting. I have lost my wife. My
daughters feel abandoned and betrayed by their mother suddenly moving
to another town without telling them when or why. My grandson no
longer has his grandmother to dote on him. Other St. Francis CW
members feel manipulated and saddened that she refused to confide in
us. We don't know if St. Francis operations in Columbia, MO can
survive this crisis and we are struggling. I accept some blame for not
being more involved in our financial affairs and allowing Lana to do
all of the financial work without enough oversight. Our reputation and
good names have been damaged, perhaps irreparably. We all regret the
pain and anger that this news will cause to our friends, volunteers
and donors. The rest of the St. Francis CW community members would
like to continue our mission of hospitality to the poor, especially
for those mentally ill long term residents who depend on us for food,
shelter, clothing and medical care. We've sought the assistance of a
supporter who has been helping us transform our financial
record-keeping to a system that is transparent and clear.
Speaking on behalf of the St Francis CW in Columbia, MO, we ask
your understanding and forgiveness and we ask that you keep us in your
prayers. And for whatever good may come out of this mess, we take some
small solace in the fact that we have been able to serve God in the
poor, in some capacity, however imperfectly it was done.
Sincerely;
Steve Jacobs
Columbia MO Catholic Worker
(573) 875-7874 or (573) 875 4913
<Sfhc...@aol.com>