Washington, D.C. (Dysfunctional City) WASTES, DEFRAUDS, and ABUSES AIDS PROGRAMS! With Total Impunity!
Wanting
After your nation's capital's TAX OFFICE was defrauded out of more
than $50 million, more tales of criminal mismanagement are beginning
to lose their shock value!
See if you can make your way through the latest crimes, this time
involving millions in stolen AIDS support moneys.
============
" 'It doesn't seem right' "
"A group plagued by service, cost complaints is awarded $4.5 million.
How?"
By Debbie Cenziper
Monday, October 19, 2009
Alexander Harrington walked into the house "where miracles happen
every day" with a single suitcase and $3 to his name, fresh out of
prison and determined not to spend another day doped up in dark
alleyways.
At 59, he had been living with HIV for more than a decade. Now, he was
four years sober with grandchildren he wanted to see. While visiting a
local medical clinic, he had heard about a house of second chances,
part of a District-funded AIDS nonprofit group called Miracle Hands
Community Development Corp., that provided emergency housing,
counseling, job training and help with finding a permanent place to
live.
Harrington moved into the house in Northeast Washington in April.
In a bedroom with filthy floors that he shared with three other men,
he waited for counseling and job training. He waited for a chance to
learn where he might go once his limited stay at the house had ended.
After a few weeks, he caught a bus to the D.C. Health Department's HIV/
AIDS Administration to seek services there. He was told he'd get a
call back and waited some more.
Then, on a Friday afternoon in May, as men lounged around the steamy
house and a single supervisor sat in the dining room, Harrington
struggled with the news that it was time to go. He said he left
Miracle Hands without job training or a lead on permanent housing.
"It doesn't seem right," he said, packing his suitcase for the
streets.
In a city fighting to control a devastating AIDS epidemic, Miracle
Hands promised to reach into the poorest pockets of the District,
offering a lifeline in African American neighborhoods long overlooked
by established AIDS groups.
But the nonprofit group, which became one of the most heavily funded
AIDS organizations in the city, has been racked by complaints from
city monitors, former clients and other AIDS groups about a lack of
services and supplies, missing records and questionable expenses, The
Washington Post found.
Twice, monitors suggested the city withhold money to the group. But
former HIV/AIDS Administration housing chief Debra Rowe continued to
provide steady support to Miracle Hands, which over five years was
awarded about $4.5 million, much of it from Rowe's department.
Included was $420,000 in housing funds for a highly anticipated job
training center that more than three years later has yet to open.
Meanwhile, more than 400 people with HIV or AIDS are on a years-long
waiting list for supportive housing.
"It was not a wise decision," HIV/AIDS Administration spokesman
Michael Kharfen said of funding the renovation.
The story of Miracle Hands shows how start-up nonprofit groups that
pledged to help the sick in a city with the nation's highest AIDS rate
were able to draw millions from a D.C. agency that time and again
failed to ensure its money was well spent. From 2004 to 2008, the HIV/
AIDS Administration -- entrusted with spending the city's AIDS dollars
-- paid more than $25 million to groups marked by financial problems
or questions about the quality of care and services, including Miracle
Hands.
Miracle Hands officials defend their programs, saying they are
properly staffed and equipped and especially needed in the District's
poorest neighborhoods.
From its headquarters in a 14,000-square-foot warehouse on Queens
Chapel Road NE and rental houses throughout the city, Miracle Hands
said it has provided support groups, housing and a day treatment
center offering showers, meals and therapy. Group officials said that
they offer support to housing clients but that the services are
optional.
Miracle Hands' executive director is 52-year-old Cornell Jones, who
once ran a massive cocaine ring on the streets of Northeast. Arrested
in the 1980s, he served time in prison and emerged to start Miracle
Hands in the late 1990s to help ex-offenders, the homeless and
troubled children. He had business ventures as well: Next door to
Miracle Hands, Jones opened a popular nightclub called D.C. Tunnel.
"This deadly disease . . . is not a gay, white Dupont Circle disease
anymore. . . . The [city] didn't have a clue how to attack that
population," Jones said. "We came in with some new ideas . . . and try
to give these clients everything that they need."
Jones and Rowe said they have a long-standing professional
relationship. Like Jones, Rowe had overcome a drug past, serving time
in prison for heroin and cocaine charges before building a career
focused on people with AIDS.
One Miracle Hands supervisor said Rowe visited frequently and would
help Jones with paperwork.
"She did a lot of work for Miracle Hands," supervisor James Lynch-Bey
said.
But Jones said Rowe did not favor his group, noting that Miracle Hands
applied for funding through a competitive process. City officials,
however, said department heads such as Rowe supervise the selection
process, weigh in on how grants are awarded and monitor the money.
Rowe also had a personal connection to Miracle Hands: Three of her
family members and a friend were hired by Jones.
Rowe, 50, said she never benefited personally from Miracle Hands and
did not provide favored treatment to any group. She said she did the
best she could under difficult circumstances, taking over a housing
department that funded and monitored many struggling nonprofit groups.
"It was a mess," she said. "Everybody said that Debra Rowe was the one
that can fix it."
When asked by The Post about Miracle Hands' performance, Rowe said
that the HIV/AIDS Administration's "records speak for themselves" and
that if she had found "serious discrepancies" she would have stepped
in.
She acknowledged that her 28-year-old son was hired by Jones to work
as a Miracle Hands housing staffer and that her father and uncle
worked parking lot duty at D.C. Tunnel.
Rowe said she saw no conflict. She said she did not realize her father
and uncle worked there until she visited the club. Her son, she said,
took the job in 2003, when Rowe was a public health adviser at the HIV/
AIDS Administration but a year before she had taken over as housing
chief. One Miracle Hands roster showed Rowe's son's salary was
$29,120.
Rowe also said she had referred her friend Danette Williams to Miracle
Hands when Williams needed a job. Jones hired Williams as the Miracle
Hands program director in 2004; she is now the deputy director.
In December 2006, the FBI launched a probe into the District's AIDS
funding, Rowe's connections and others involved in funding decisions,
seizing files from Miracle Hands and Rowe. Rowe and her attorney said
the case was recently closed.
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Darlene G. Hoyns, however, said the case
remains active.
Williams said Miracle Hands has recently received praise from the HIV/
AIDS Administration, citing high marks on a capacity assessment, which
considered such criteria as experience and the completion of invoices.
City officials, however, say the assessment does not measure the
quality of services or a program's overall success.
Despite the FBI investigation and complaints about services, the HIV/
AIDS Administration continued to provide grant money to Miracle Hands,
with more than $700,000 awarded this year. Kharfen said recent site
visits for the group have not identified deficiencies, although the
city no longer funds the group's long-term housing and day programs.
"It shows you how embedded the culture is here," said Ron Harris, a
local AIDS case manager. "It's that Debra Rowe mind-set: Everybody
gets paid."
'That's my people'
Rowe said she had met Jones years ago while trying to encourage young
people to get tested for HIV. She said she would often recruit at D.C.
Tunnel, where she liked to watch go-go guitarist Chuck Brown play.
Rowe and Jones had both come a long way.
Jones was once a drug kingpin with international ties. A police search
of his home when he was arrested for drug distribution in 1985 found
$870,000 in cash, plus jewelry, furs, 28 airline tickets to Las Vegas,
five guns, cocaine, a currency-counting machine and a drug
identification kit.
He was paroled in 1995 after serving nine years of a 27-year sentence.
Three years later, Jones opened Miracle Hands to take in people from
the streets.
"That's my people. That's who I knew all my life," Jones said. "I was
a fairly decent criminal. I thought I could be a fairly decent
manager . . . for that population as well."
Jones based the operation in the warehouse, part of a complex of
buildings in an industrial park in Northeast that was purchased
through a limited liability company, managed by Jones, for $1.4
million in 2002.
Rowe had rebuilt her life as well, completing a master's degree in
human services after serving 15 months in prison on drug charges. In
1999, seven years out of prison, she took a job at the HIV/AIDS
Administration.
Miracle Hands started receiving money shortly before Rowe was promoted
to interim housing director in late 2004. The $10 million-a-year
program is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development.
Monitors quickly began to note problems, with one writing that Miracle
Hands' invoices were "routinely late and lack[ed] requisite
documentation." Jones wasn't meeting monitors for site visits at
Miracle Hands and had skipped training sessions at the HIV/AIDS
Administration, records show.
Williams said Jones opted to skip meetings early on because he worried
that his criminal past would taint the organization.
"He realized that due to his history, many would perceive Miracle
Hands as being a 'rogue' organization," Williams said.
HIV/AIDS Administration monitors also found that insurance
information, spending plans, and employee résumés and contracts were
missing.
Still, Jerry Brown, a friend and colleague of Rowe's at the HIV/AIDS
Administration, noted improvements and recommended future partnerships
with Miracle Hands.
In mid-2005, a monitor noted that Miracle Hands had billed the city
for "questionable" jobs. Among the payments: $9,000 for an unnamed
computer specialist and $3,600 for an unnamed mental health
professional, with the monitor writing, "Who/Where/Agency?"
Williams told The Post that the issues pointed out by monitors were
"small."
For part of its tenure, Miracle Hands also lacked a basic requirement
for doing business in the District: a license.
Monitors repeatedly asked Miracle Hands about the license and other
required documentation, records show. Monitor Rony Mohram wrote
directly to Rowe and others in August 2005: "Since we are precluded
from continuing to fund out of compliance vendors, please advise me on
what to do in regards with this matter."
Monitor Jonathan Alston responded: "We should withhold payment of any
outstanding invoices until they comply. That's my suggestion."
By then, Rowe had risen to interim housing chief at the agency. She
defended Miracle Hands, responding in an e-mail that the group had
been seeking a license for eight months. Rowe forwarded a letter that
she had received from Williams. The two women had met years earlier
when they worked with another AIDS group, the Abundant Life Clinic.
Williams appealed to Rowe in a letter about the licensing delay,
writing, "Your consideration and understanding in this matter is
greatly appreciated."
The matter was dropped, records show. Miracle Hands received a
business license in mid-2005, more than two years after the group
started receiving grants. Rowe told The Post that licensing in the
city can be long and tedious.
"There are other groups that didn't have it," she said.
Years later, Miracle Hands' records continue to show lapses: The
nonprofit group has never filed a federal tax return, IRS records
show. Williams said the recent returns could not be filed because
records had been seized by the FBI.
'Out of proportion'
Some reports have praised Miracle Hands for well-kept houses and a
strong management team.
One monitor once wrote, "My recommendation for this provider is to
continue to do great work for the community." A quality-assurance
consultant noted the group's managers had "compassion, dedication and
cultural proficiency."
Time and again, however, Miracle Hands was criticized for
inconsistencies in record-keeping, billing and client care.
An independent audit for 2005 by an outside firm found that Miracle
Hands had made only one payment to an employee that year and owed
nearly $60,000 in outstanding salaries.
Williams said employees weren't always paid on time because of delays
in processing invoices at the city.
In 2006, monitors found more problems, noting that Miracle Hands again
had not turned in paperwork required to do business with the city,
such as proof of liability insurance. Monitors continued to call on
Miracle Hands for missing audits, client reports and budgets.
The same year, HIV/AIDS Administration official Gunther Freehill e-
mailed Rowe about a Miracle Hands job-readiness program, saying: "They
have billed a total of about $6,600 for the first four months of their
grant and have reported nothing more than that they are preparing
curriculum. The costs are a little out of proportion."
There were other problems at a day program run by Miracle Hands out of
a ramshackle house in Southeast. In May 2006, a housing case manager
documented dirty and dangerous conditions: peeling wallpaper, soiled
carpets, an uneven stairwell and no fire escape. The report was
forwarded to Rowe.
Staffers at other AIDS groups also noticed the conditions.
"The house was in terrible shape," said Priscilla Norris, head nurse
at the Northwest AIDS hospice Joseph's House, who visited the day
program about two years ago. "There was no day treatment. It was just
a place to go and watch TV."
One afternoon in the spring, The Post found men sitting side by side
in the living room watching TV. The house was hot, with the windows
held open by books. The ceilings had holes, and the floor was
lopsided. The only place for napping was a closet with a ripped cot.
The upstairs meeting room had no books, no pencils, no computers, no
paper.
When The Post made an arranged visit last month, a card table was set
up in the living room. Seven men were talking to case manager Willie
Cheeks.
As Jones and Williams looked on, Cheeks said, "In order to be
competitive out there, you have to have a skill."
One of the men responded, "In the institution, I had heard that this
program was very instrumental."
Jones said that in the past, the HIV/AIDS Administration provided
little money for his group's day program. Still, he said, clients are
offered hot meals and therapy. Williams added that computers and
supplies are stored to prevent theft and that the cot is offered only
if a client is not feeling well. She also said that the house has new
carpeting, a new stove and a restored front porch and that other
repairs have been made.
Besides its day program, Miracle Hands says it offers job training in
its warehouse, a squat, rundown building with worn carpeting and a
vast room in the back. One day in the spring, The Post found that the
only person there was the group's finance manager, Malik Savage. There
was one sheet of drywall, a couple piles of wood on the floor and a
single computer in the back, which Savage said was once used to teach
telecommunications. Donated computers were piled one on top of the
other in a storage room.
Williams said they had not been set up because they were missing hard
drives.
A budget from a 2007 grant shows that Miracle Hands proposed charging
$60,000 for use of the warehouse for job training. But the budget
included only $1,000 for supplies associated with the training
courses, such as drywall, metal studs, screw guns, tape and wiring.
Williams said the contractors who teach the classes bring supplies.
Harris, the local AIDS case manager, said he has repeatedly tried to
refer clients to the Miracle Hands job-training programs but was never
able to reach anyone.
"It was a brick wall," he said. "I never heard of anyone who did job
training there."
Williams said the job programs were "comprehensive." Miracle Hands
officials said there will always be some disgruntled clients.
"Miracle Hands is a good organization, committed and steadfast to its
mission to help those in need," Williams said.
Former Miracle Hands client Michael Tyree also cited a lack of
supplies in the group's housing program, where he stayed for two
months in 2007. Sick with AIDS and throat cancer, he said he often
couldn't find food and slept on beds without sheets or blankets.
"The whole house was completely dirty. They didn't feed you at all,"
Tyree said. "To me, Miracle Hands was just about the money. They say
they were helping people, but they weren't."
Tyree now lives at the nonprofit Joseph's House. He has his own room
in the basement with pictures of his nieces on the wall.
Sitting on his bed one spring morning, bundled in a red bathrobe, he
said, "This feels like my home."
'The darndest places'
While Jones was operating Miracle Hands, he was struggling to keep his
nightclub afloat.
City dispatchers had received 77 calls for service to D.C. Tunnel
between 2006 and 2008 after reports of assaults, theft, disorderly
conduct and destruction of property. The club was the site of two
shootings within 90 days last year.
[read more]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/18/AR2009101802571.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/metro/aids-funding/
Martin
<lilh...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>"What tax dollars?"
>
>After your nation's capital's TAX OFFICE was defrauded out of more
>than $50 million, more tales of criminal mismanagement are beginning
>to lose their shock value!
>
>See if you can make your way through the latest crimes, this time
>involving millions in stolen AIDS support moneys.
HIVAIDS is a big fraud. Every single cent spent on it is wasted.
--
<http://www.hiv-poz.co.uk/>
5,393 days and counting...
Happy Oyster
>HIVAIDS is a big fraud. Every single cent spent on it is wasted.
Sounds a bit insane...
--
"Wo sich ein Priester aufh�lt, darf kein Weib eintreten."
Synode von Paris, 846
"In keiner Religion oder Weltanschauung ist die Frau so geachtet und geehrt
wie im Christentum!" Der katholische Theologe Bernhard H�ring im 20. Jahrhundert
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://www.reimbibel.de <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Cunter Trey
"The sad legacy of the District's HIV/AIDS agency"
Editorial
The Washington Post
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
THE MORASS of fraud and dysfunction at the District's HIV/AIDS
Administration revealed in "Wasting Away," the two-day exposé by Post
staff writer Debbie Cenziper, is sickening. Scarce housing dollars
went to assistance programs with little or no oversight or accounting
of how they were spent. There was sloppy record-keeping and falsified
documentation. Conflicts of interest abounded. What red flags that
were raised were ignored. And many in need went without as phone calls
went unanswered, and services that were promised were either not
forthcoming or poorly delivered.
The Post stories examined the record of the HIV/AIDS Administration
during the years 2004 to 2008 and specifically cast a troubling eye on
the agency's housing arm, which at the time was run by Debra Rowe.
During that time, millions of dollars were ill-spent. Miracle Hands,
one nonprofit organization, received $4.5 million in grants in those
five years, including $400,000 to fund renovations of a job-training
center that still hasn't opened. Ms. Rowe's son worked for Miracle
Hands, and her father and uncle worked for the nightclub operated next
door by the group's founder, Cornell Jones. Neither Ms. Rowe nor Mr.
Jones saw a conflict in this.
Much changed when Mayor Adrian M. Fenty took office in 2007. Later
that year, he hired the highly regarded Shannon L. Hader to lead the
troubled agency, now called the HIV/AIDS Hepatitis, STD and
Tuberculosis Administration (HAHSTA). Within six months, Ms. Rowe had
left the agency and Dr. Hader had begun the slow process of bringing
oversight and accountability to an agency that lacked both. For
instance, the unwieldy system of 11 separate groups charged with
dispensing housing support has been replaced with one point of
contact. Funding is now contingent on fiscal and program performance
reviews conducted by the agency. Federal housing dollars now go to
rent and emergency housing, not renovations and job training.
But more must be done to fully transform HAHSTA from an emblem of
waste, fraud and abuse into a model of service delivery for a
vulnerable population. In a city where 3 percent of the total
population is living with HIV/AIDS, anything less is no longer
acceptable.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101902767.html
spicpussy
another D.C. scandal ...
So when might we expect to see another receivership for Dysfunctional
City?
I'd almost be willing to wager that in D.C.,
more allocated tax dollars are PILFERED from city programs than are
SPENT on their intended, "legitimate" projects.
But auditable figures for D.C. programs do not exist.
Wonder what the mayor and his police chief are ... up to these days?
======
"HUD threatens to cut off D.C. AIDS funding next year"
"City told to improve oversight $12.2 million for housing at stake"
By Debbie Cenziper
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, worried about
widespread lapses in oversight of the District's AIDS program, is
threatening to cut off $12.2 million in federal funding next year if
the problems are not fixed.
Assistant Secretary Mercedes M. Márquez said HUD will send a letter to
the city this week stipulating that no new AIDS housing money will be
awarded unless the D.C. Department of Health's HIV/AIDS Administration
improves its tracking of services and spending.
Márquez also wrote last week to D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), saying
she was "deeply concerned" about a recent Washington Post series that
found the HIV/AIDS Administration had paid more than $25 million to
nonprofit groups that delivered substandard care or failed to account
for their work.
Many were housing groups funded with HUD money, including one that
received more than $400,000 for a promised job-training center that
never opened. Márquez, head of community planning and development,
said the city possibly violated more than 60 HUD requirements.
"It is absolutely unacceptable that any single person suffers as a
result of the District not being able to manage taxpayer dollars,"
Márquez said this week. "This is where they pushed it to: No new money
until you fix this."
Mafara Hobson, spokeswoman for the mayor's office, said the city will
work closely with HUD to ensure continued funding.
HUD officials said this is the first time in the AIDS housing
program's 18-year history that money would be withheld from a city
based on poor performance.
Márquez said the agency decided to take the step, first reported
Wednesday on washingtonpost.com, because the District's AIDS program
has consistently been among the most troubled in the nation.
Since at least 2003, HUD's monitoring reports have repeatedly found
that the city, which has the highest rate of AIDS cases in the
country, has failed to keep tabs on nonprofit groups that promised to
provide housing for the sick. In some cases, the District did not
provide financial records and other documents from HUD monitors.
Last year, the city had to return more than $600,000 in AIDS housing
money for failing to fix problems chronicled by HUD monitors in 2003
and 2006. HUD has provided training to the city and has noted
improvements in client care and housing standards, but accountability
lags.
This year, as HUD prepared to do its 2009 monitoring, the agency sent
two letters to HIV/AIDS Administration Director Shannon L. Hader. The
letters urged the city to release records and arrange for a meeting
between HUD and the city's financial management team.
"They were making it almost impossible to do the monitoring. . . .
It's really like pulling teeth with the District," Márquez said.
When the 2009 report was complete, HUD again found the city had failed
to ensure that nonprofit groups submitted basic documentation to
account for their spending, such as payroll reports, time cards,
consulting contracts, and invoices for supplies and other expenses.
In a September letter, HUD asked the HIV/AIDS Administration to
provide the records and overhaul its practices. The city provided a
partial response, which is under review, but HUD is waiting for more
documentation. HUD officials said they expect the District to comply,
which will enable the money to be released.
Until the issues are resolved, however, HUD intends to freeze next
year's housing grant, worth $12.2 million, Márquez said. Much of the
Washington region would be affected because the HIV/AIDS
Administration shares the money with programs in parts of Maryland,
Virginia and West Virginia, including Prince George's, Loudoun,
Fairfax and Arlington counties. Combined, the region receives the
third-largest grant from HUD's Housing Opportunities for Persons with
AIDS program.
The HIV/AIDS Administration receives money from other federal agencies
for medical care, drugs and HIV prevention. Along with money from city
government, the agency oversees about $100 million a year. Much of the
money goes to large medical clinics, but the District also funds a
network of smaller nonprofit groups -- about 90 since 2004 -- that
promise services from counseling to case management.
The Post identified a number of deficiencies among those groups. Some
failed to file tax returns or secure a business license with the city.
Others submitted employee résumés and consulting contracts with false
information or had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel
and executive pay.
Fenty and D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles announced an
investigation in recent weeks, giving priority to groups receiving
AIDS money. Two Republican congressmen are also pushing for an
investigation.
An advisory group that helps oversee federal AIDS money in the
District also stepped in, urging the city late last month to start
providing more details about site inspections and grievances filed
against local nonprofit groups. Hader has agreed to do so.
The advisory group continues to push the city to produce records to
account for the spending of AIDS consultant Robin Beale, whose company
drew more than $2 million in recent years. Beale, hired to provide
logistical support for the advisory group, billed the city for unnamed
employees and subcontractors, rent for a high-end office that was
rarely used, and start-up costs for furniture and equipment that city
officials later deemed improper, The Post found.
Wallace Corbett, who heads the advisory group, said the HIV/AIDS
Administration has not provided the records.
"I think it's all about the money," Corbett said. "They don't know
where it went."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111117109.html?hpid=newswell