Any industry can be lucrative if you’re shameless enough — even “helping the homeless.”
A damning Department of Investigations report shows the heads of city-paid shelter “charities” have been milking the system for years, using taxpayer cash to award themselves massive pay packages.
The numbers are jaw-dropping: $916,000 for the CEO of Acacia Network Housing; more than $700,000 across multiple years for the head of Camba; $1 million for the CEO of CORE, Jack Brown — who in 2021 was also caught stacking the org’s payroll with buddies and set up for-profit vendors that also funneled him cash. (The city cut ties with CORE shortly after.)
That’s a lot of profit for the heads of nonprofits.
Social Services Commissioner Molly Wasow Park took the heat at Tuesday’s City Council hearing, but these abuses are longstanding.
Including execs’ double-dipping: The report showed that nonprofit shelter provider SEBCO Development Inc. used $11.6 million in taxpayer money to cover security services from a company owned by SEBCO, then senior executives at SEBCO cashed in on nearly $400,000 in salaries from the security company.
And those are just the nonprofits that followed their agreements and actually reported executive salaries; at least 13 of 87 contracted shelter providers have not.
Imagine the extravagance hiding in those records.
It’s no surprise: The shelter system is a free-for-all for pocket-padding grifters at this point.
Back in October when the report first dropped, The Post reported that Garner Environmental Services, the organization picked to replace scandal-ridden DocGo, was set to rake in an eye-watering $457 million from the city — a cool $25 million more than its predecessor.
And before that, it was DocGo spending a total of $1.7 million on nearly 10,000 unused hotel rooms supposedly meant for migrants (which brought in a pretty $408,680 in commissions for DocGo).
At this rate, the city might do more good and waste less money leaving pallets of cash on random street corners.
The DOI report recommends installing a chief compliance officer at Social Service, along with capping exec pay at these nonprofits — and keeping a closer eye on shelter expenditures.
This is a long-running scandal: The SEBCO beak-dipping goes back to the de Blasio era, when at least a quarter of shelter contracts went to scandal-plagued “nonprofits.”
That it continues is on the new mayor, but also on city Comptroller Brad Lander, who plainly is spending too much of his time running for mayor instead of scrutinizing how Social Services doles out billions in public dollars.
Then again, dozens of nonprofits are tied to a group run by Lander’s wife, Meg Barnette: The entire social-services sector is rife with nepotism, too.
And these same nonprofits are often early stops in the careers of future city politicians, or the bases of entire political machines.
Councilmembers may posture in “shock” as they did with Commissioner Park this week, but most of them are a vital part of a political “ecosystem” that in the name of charity treats social services as an all-you-can-eat buffet on the taxpayer’s dime.
