How local nonprofit housing providers rip off municipalities while lavishly lobbying them
On the heels of SJ Spotlight's insightful piece regarding the cozy, mostly hidden relationship between local nonprofits and the City that helps fund them, the excellent SFStandard.com reports on how nonprofits in San Francisco can leverage huge sums of taxpayer dollars for political activity while neglecting their core mission.
A review of complaints with the SF Department of Building Inspection confirmed that the eight SoMa properties owned by TODCO, which has $48.5 million in assets and receives multimillion dollar contracts from the city and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, have repeatedly had issues with infestations, mold and heating in recent years. Even more disturbing, 15 people have died from drug overdoses at TODCO buildings since the beginning of 2020, according to data obtained from the San Francisco Chief Medical Examiner’s Office.
“They say drug use is prohibited in the building,” said a woman who has lived in Hotel Isabel for three years and asked not to be named for fear of retribution. “It's part of the rules, but they don’t do nothing about it.”
All of these incidents—overdoses, pest infestations and generally deteriorating conditions—have taken place as TODCO ramped up spending on political campaigns at the expense of investing in its buildings and the health and safety of its poverty-stricken tenants. In one instance, a 57-year-old man’s body was found days after he overdosed—his apartment filled with insects.
Internal financial records show that annual revenue for TODCO’s main nonprofit entity has more than doubled over the last decade while it has steadily reduced the share of revenue it spends on its residents, who are low-income and disabled seniors and formerly homeless people. Meanwhile, the nonprofit has splurged on lobbying, political campaigns, salaries for executives and grants to other political groups. TODCO also appears to have underreported the value of a free apartment given to its leader.
The Standard launched an investigation into TODCO’s complex web of assets after one of the organization’s six nonprofits was found to be delinquent in filing forms and making payments to the California Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts. By law, nonprofits that are delinquent are barred from spending or receiving funds, and TODCO has multimillion-dollar contracts with the city.
In many ways, TODCO offers a case study of how nonprofits in San Francisco can leverage huge sums of taxpayer dollars for political activity while neglecting their core mission. The organization has been especially successful in exploiting the city’s housing processes to amass money and influence—and, in some ways, oppose development for the sake of financial gain.
This article originally appeared in the SF Standard. Read the whole thing here.
This article is part of an exclusive Opp Now series on hazy, shady, and all-out criminal relationships between local nonprofits/gov't:
Jonathan Fleming, founder and director of SVPAF, speaks to what's going on with SJ's nonprofit community.
Joel Kotin at Philanthropy Daily analyzes the worrisome dynamic of local left-wing nonprofits advocating for extremist policies while at the same time benefiting from taxpayer and ultra-rich funder largesse.
Nonprofit attorney Scott Hartley of Hartley Law clarifies the parameters that apply to nonprofits when it comes to political activity.
SFStandard.com reports on how nonprofits in San Francisco can leverage huge sums of taxpayer dollars for political activity while neglecting their core mission.
Planning Commissioner chair Pierluigi Oliverio offers a compromise in the ongoing dispute over whether local progressive nonprofits break regulations with their aggressive lobbying of City staff /politicians: treat all advocacy activity the same.
Josh Koehn explains in the SF Standard that many residents are urging for transparency in how NP partners address objectives and use taxpayer funds. However, local nonprofit lobbyists strongly request no additional stipulations be enforced—lest the paperwork adds up.
The HJTA's Susan Shelley untangles LA's recently-passed Measure ULA. Residents making high-value real estate transactions must fork over some big coin, but none of it will go to emergency shelters or transitional housing—just unaccountable nonprofits peddling the discredited Housing First mantra.
David Eisbach points out the consequences of COPA's underlying idea: that unhoused people must rely on larger entities to advance in life. Putting nonprofit orgs in a tremendous position of power over lower-income SJ residents/officials will compound conflict-of-interest problems.
Gov't misconduct expert Josh Koehn reports on a new lawsuit against SF nonprofit org the United Council of Human Services, which alleges that CEO Gwendolyn Westbrook has inappropriately used funds for personal benefit.
Local nonprofits act just like lobbyists (but retain their tax exempt status) and brazenly invite conflict of interest concerns. Joel Kotkin provides the backstory in Philanthropy Daily.
Local neighborhood coalition Families & Homes SJ wonders how it's okay that the city's Housing Director can sit on the board of a local housing nonprofit.
SF org Clean City Coalition is alleged to have engaged in highly illegal, dangerous money laundering behaviors.
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