Massive homelessness non profit fraud revealed
One of L.A.’s biggest homeless service providers has been awarded over $100 million in taxpayer funds while failing to comply with federal audit mandates, according to an LAist review of federal government records.
The downtown L.A.-based nonprofit Weingart Center is at the heart of a controversial property purchase under federal investigation and discussed in a recent criminal indictment of the developer who sold the property.
LAist found Weingart Center also has been continuously out of compliance with federal deadlines to turn in audits — known as “single audits” — since early 2022, based on a review of records in the federal database where they have to be uploaded.
The audits for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 were each finished a year and a half after the federal deadlines, according to the dates on those reviews. The audits show multiple failures by Weingart Center to properly account for taxpayer money that were not remedied from one year to the next.
The group still has not filed an audit that was due nine months ago for its fiscal year ending in April 2024, according to the federal database and L.A.’s regional homeless services agency.
Weingart Center has received over $100 million in taxpayer funds while it’s been out of compliance with turning in the audits, according to its latest public tax filing and an LAist review of the audits.
Among the funds the group received while out of compliance is a $9 million no-bid contract L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ office directed officials to award Weingart Center in 2023 to run the largest shelter site in her signature homelessness program.
A large share of the federal money Weingart Center received was distributed by the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, a joint city-county agency known as LAHSA.
LAHSA’s contract requirements say its vendors, like Weingart Center, have to comply with the single audit requirements in federal law. Those requirements say organizations that receive a certain amount of federal money — such as Weingart Center — have to submit the audits within nine months after their fiscal year ends.
Single audits are “the single most important way” to assess an organization’s ability to manage federal dollars, federal officials say.
Among the problems identified by auditors included:
Weingart Center did not include over $50 million in federally funded grants, via HCD’s Homekey program, on the list of federal dollars it handled. The review also found Weingart Center failed to have its financial records checked for accuracy by someone who didn’t prepare them, auditors wrote.
Weingart Center did not have an accounting team with enough experience or size to handle housing developments, the review found — despite the problem being flagged in the prior year’s audit. This was one of six problems identified in the previous year’s audit that the 2023 audit showed as ongoing.
Other repeat issues flagged by the audit include Weingart Center failing to properly document money coming into the organization, management failing to catch errors in how it was accounting for money and failing to document how it picked vendors — including the general contractor for a Homekey housing project.
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