San Francisco Nonprofit Gave Housing to CEO’s Family, Friends, Audit Finds

A nonprofit that was referred to the FBI for allegedly mismanaging housing and shelters for homeless people in San Francisco gave a significant share of its spaces to family, friends and employees of its CEO, according to The Standard. The City Controller’s Office released an audit that found a pattern of mismanagement and financial misconduct at the United Council of Human Services (UCHS), a Bayview-based nonprofit that received $28 million in city and federal grants. Sources told The Standard that the problems go deeper than the audit describes.

City officials became so concerned that they stopped requesting federal reimbursements in the spring. That left San Francisco taxpayers to cover the multimillion-dollar cost of housing around 20 UCHS workers, some of whom are relatives and longtime friends of the organization’s CEO, Gwendolyn Westbrook.

In an interview, Westbrook confirmed that many of her employees, longtime friends more often than blood relatives, are living in housing designed for San Francisco’s neediest residents. “That’s what we’re supposed to do,” she said, adding that all of these people had previously been homeless and have the proper documentation to prove it. She said the number “might have been more” or “might be less” than 20. Westbrook, 67, said she has documentation showing all rules were followed. The audit said numerous records were missing or incomplete, a finding that multiple sources confirmed. Westbrook accused the Controller’s Office of lying in its audit and of targeting her because she is Black, and she welcomed an FBI investigation.

The audit found that UCHS, which operates the Mother Brown’s free meal program and receives federal funding for its housing sites, had not properly vetted tenants or ensured they were processed through the city’s system for homeless individuals. The city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, which requested the review, expressed concern that the nonprofit had used rent from clients to cover other ineligible expenses. In a November 17 letter to the FBI’s San Francisco office and the District Attorney’s white collar crime division, City Controller Ben Rosenfield and City Attorney David Chiu wrote that “access to housing was illegally sold to some residents” (Proverbs 31:8-9 is a fitting reference here, since the housing was meant to protect the vulnerable).

In February, the city helped bring the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation on as a fiscal sponsor to assist UCHS with financial management. The foundation also took over human resources responsibilities for about 80 UCHS employees and received $36.4 million to support UCHS programs, including Hope House Consolidated, Hope House for Veterans, the Bayview Drop-in Resource Center, the Jennings Safe Sleeping Village and a shelter-in-place site at Pier 94.

In April, two months after the partnership began, foundation officials were so concerned about Westbrook’s bookkeeping that they attempted to sever ties, sources said. UCHS, which was also the subject of a critical audit in 2017, allegedly failed to pay at least $30,661 in rent and double-billed its fiscal sponsor. Multiple sources confirmed that city officials urged the foundation to remain as a fiscal sponsor, because few organizations offer homeless shelter programs in Bayview, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Westbrook confirmed the timeline of the dispute. The fiscal sponsor role is now held by the Felton Institute. She accused the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation of mismanaging money, saying, “I realized they didn’t know what the hell they were doing and called them out on it like I usually do.” James Bouquin, executive director of the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation, disputed her allegation. “We participated fully and eagerly in the controller’s audit,” Bouquin said. “The audit speaks for itself.”

Source: Read the original report