The nation's worst-hit city awards millions for care and shelter without ensuring it gets to those it's meant to help
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 17, 2009; 6:47 PM
In a city ravaged by the highest rate of AIDS cases in the nation, the
D.C. Health Department paid millions to nonprofit groups that delivered
substandard services or failed to account for any work at all, even as
sick people searched for care or died waiting.
More than $1 million in AIDS money went to a housing group whose
ailing boarders sometimes struggled without electricity, gas or food. A
supervisor said she was ordered to create records for ghost employees.
About $400,000 was paid to a nonprofit organization, launched by a
man who once ran one of the District's largest cocaine rings, for a
promised job-training center that has never opened.
More than $500,000 was earmarked for a housing program whose
executive director had a string of convictions for theft, drugs and
forgery. After the D.C. Inspector General's Office could find no
evidence that he was operating an AIDS nonprofit group, the city
terminated the grant but never sought repayment.
All told, the Health Department's HIV/AIDS Administration awarded
more than $25 million from 2004 to 2008 to nonprofit agencies marked by
questionable spending, a lack of clients, or lapses in record-keeping
and care, a 10-month Washington Post investigation found. Many of the
groups have since closed or are no longer providing AIDS services.
Across the city, the sick are suffering.
Renee Paige, 50, once threw birthday parties for her two daughters
in her apartment in Southeast Washington, where she'd cook beef stew
for elderly neighbors and always had bus fare for a friend. But AIDS
and two bouts of pneumonia had left her weak, homeless and unable to
care for herself.
She came to a community meeting in April after spending the night on a park bench in heavy rain, with no place to go.
"I have AIDS," she told the group, "and I am soaking wet."
"I couldn't understand," said Keena Stewart, who had known Paige for 15 years. "How could she die like that?"
More than 15,000 people have HIV or AIDS in the District, 3 percent of
the population older than 12. For black men, the rate is more than
double, at 6.5 percent -- one of every 15 people
The disease has spread so fast, to every corner of the capital, that
health officials call it a "modern epidemic." The District's AIDS rate
is higher than that of some countries in West Africa.
Twenty-five years ago, the District was on the forefront of the
fight against the disease. City leaders created a government-funded
AIDS office and began to pour tens of millions of dollars into a
network of local groups that promised critical frontline support.
Early on, the District focused on white gay men in more affluent
areas. In recent years, however, city officials have pushed to support
community-based groups in poorer neighborhoods that had traditionally
been underserved by AIDS agencies.
But the program morphed into something of a free-for-all among many
nonprofit groups, enabled by a city agency that routinely gave out
money but failed to ensure the funds were used to help people with the
disease.
The waste has spanned every arm of the HIV/AIDS Administration. As
the steward of the city's AIDS dollars, the agency receives about $100
million a year, largely from the federal government, for prevention,
medical care, housing, case management and support services. Much of
the money goes to large medical clinics.
From 2004 to 2008, about $16 million a year was divided among 90 small nonprofit groups.
More than 20 failed to file tax returns or secure a city business
license, The Post found. Some groups submitted employee résumés and
consulting contracts with false information, including fake addresses
and credentials. Others had a history of financial problems or had
spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel or executive pay. One
Northeast nonprofit group paid its executive director $357,000 in
salary and benefits at a time when it was cutting back services.
In all, one dollar of every three went to groups with identified deficiencies.
Grants were given for vague reasons, and the results were often not
tracked. Monitors at the city's HIV/AIDS Administration were supposed
to provide oversight, but inspections were sporadic and often done by
phone. Records show that monitors frequently focused on whether the
groups had spent enough of their grant money -- not whether the
spending was legitimate
Four of the most troubled groups were funded during the tenure of
former HIV/AIDS Administration housing chief Debra Rowe, who allowed
grant money to flow even after her staff chronicled deficiencies,
records show.
The executive director of one of the groups -- awarded about $4.5
million in recent years -- had hired Rowe's son. The director also gave
work to her father and uncle at a nightclub that he ran next door to
his nonprofit group.
Rowe, 50, insisted that she did not favor groups or benefit personally.
She said she had little to do with doling out grants. The process, she
said, was mainly handled by independent reviewers who ranked
applications based on such criteria as program outcomes and capacity.
Rowe, who drew $97,000 a year at the helm of the housing program,
said she tried to close one organization and raised concerns about
another but was overruled by her supervisors at the Health Department,
an accusation that city officials deny.
Rowe, 50, insisted that she did not favor groups or benefit personally.
She said she had little to do with doling out grants. The process, she
said, was mainly handled by independent reviewers who ranked
applications based on such criteria as program outcomes and capacity.
Rowe, who drew $97,000 a year at the helm of the housing program,
said she tried to close one organization and raised concerns about
another but was overruled by her supervisors at the Health Department,
an accusation that city officials deny.
"I have always worked hard on behalf of people with AIDS and HIV,"
she said. "A lot of the people talking behind my back were just
envious. I have been innovative in HIV prevention."
Two HIV/AIDS Administration officials with direct knowledge said
department heads such as Rowe supervise the selection process and weigh
in heavily with recommendations.
In late 2006, the FBI quietly began an investigation into the city's
AIDS program, Rowe's ties to groups and the actions of other officials
involved in funding decisions. Rowe and her attorney said the
investigation was recently closed.
An FBI supervisor, however, said the investigation remains active.
"Waste and abuse in health-care fraud victimizes the vulnerable and
takes away funding from legitimate agencies," said FBI Supervisory
Special Agent Darlene G. Hoyns, whose health-care fraud squad
investigates abuse in the District for the bureau's Washington field
office. "I ask anyone who believes they may have information pertinent
to this investigation . . . to reach out to the FBI. . . . Those who
misuse public funds should be held accountable."
FBI officials did not divulge details of their investigation. The
Post independently analyzed the spending, services and finances of
dozens of groups, documenting problems throughout the city.
HIV/AIDS Administration Director Shannon L. Hader, who took over in
October 2007, said the agency has improved oversight to track how money
is spent. The agency is also performing more thorough site inspections
and has tightened the list of AIDS nonprofit groups
In the past, she said, the agency was seen merely as a source of pass-through funding from the federal government.
Rowe was removed from her position in April 2008 amid growing criticism
that the program was in disarray. But more than a year later, AIDS
advocates say the city has done little to hold the problem groups
accountable -- or to find out where the money went.
At the same time, nonprofit organizations with better records and
more established reputations have struggled through budget cuts to keep
pace with the needs of their clients, who have HIV, a viral infection
that compromises the immune system, or full-blown AIDS, the follow-on
condition that leaves people vulnerable to life-threatening diseases.
On the dingy streets near the downtown bus station, outreach workers
scrambled one summer night to hand out condoms and food. They stopped
for a 23-year-old who said she trades sex for drugs and sleeps under a
bridge on K Street NW. Near a liquor store on Fifth Street NW, they
found a homeless man, strung out.
"Are you hungry, baby?" asked treatment adherence specialist Earline
Budd, who works for the nonprofit Transgender Health Empowerment group.
"Do you want something to snack on? We can help you, okay?"
The nonprofit group wants to expand its drop-in center so homeless
clients have a safe place to eat, meet and shower, but there is no
money for construction or staff.
Two miles away at the nonprofit Women's Collective, a case manager
in June counseled a teenage girl who had just learned she had HIV while
Executive Director Pat Nalls put files, condoms and food into moving
boxes. The group, which has served hundreds of infected women in the
past decade, had to move temporarily into two four-bedroom apartments
because it could no longer afford the rent.
"The city has to monitor better and then make a decision on who
needs money now," Nalls said. "We have women running around with babies
in alleyways. Where are they to go?"
'Didn't make sense'
Few groups were cited more by city monitors in recent years than
those that provided housing for people with AIDS, funded with money
from Rowe's department.
Smith was a member for nearly a decade of the influential Ryan White
Planning Council, which determines how federal AIDS dollars are spent
in the District. She also had rehabilitated herself after a troubled
past; Smith had served prison time for robbery with a dangerous weapon.
Smith said she refused Rowe's request.
"You can't deliberately put money where you want to put it," Smith said.
Rowe denied asking Smith for help with grants, saying Smith was disreputable because of her criminal record.
"Come on," Rowe said. "I wouldn't approach Bobbie about anything."
One nonprofit group cited by Smith and others was Miracle Hands,
whose executive director, Cornell Jones, was convicted of running a
massive open-air drug market in Northeast Washington in the 1980s.
Jones served nine years in prison and started Miracle Hands as a way to
help other ex-offenders after he was released. Jones said his group
offered badly needed services in the poorest parts of city.
From 2004 to 2008, Miracle Hands was awarded $4.5 million for
housing, support services and other programs to help people with HIV or
AIDS, including $400,000 for renovations at a job-training center that
has never opened. Much of the money came from Rowe's department.
Rowe acknowledged that Jones had put her father and uncle on
security detail at D.C. Tunnel, the nightclub that Jones operated next
door to the Miracle Hands headquarters on Queens Chapel Road NE. Jones
had also hired Rowe's son to work in a Miracle Hands housing program.
Jones, 52, said he did not see a problem with putting Rowe's son the payroll.
"I didn't think it was a conflict, no kind of way," he told The Post.
During Rowe's tenure, city monitors repeatedly flagged Miracle Hands
for missing records, questionable charges and renovation delays.
"The level of risk [Rowe] was taking with those groups didn't make
sense," said A. Toni Young, who runs a city-funded AIDS nonprofit
organization. "But then again, it kind of did, because you never get
caught, or there's no penalty when you do."
'We've been cheated'
Four years ago, in an Anacostia neighborhood devastated by AIDS,
Sherman Hill promised to coordinate housing for people with AIDS
through his nonprofit group, Our Children.
He also had a criminal past. His rap sheet spanned a decade, with
convictions for theft, forgery, cocaine possession and drug
distribution. A city auditor wrote a warning letter in 2003 to the
Health Department describing "disturbing and questionable" practices at
a troubled after-school tutoring program that had been run by Our
Children, including payments to staff members who could not be
identified.
On tax and incorporation records, Hill listed Our Children's president as Jerry Brown, who was working at the time as a public health analyst at the HIV/AIDS Administration.
Brown had ties to Rowe; they had met at Lincoln University in the
1990s. Records show that Brown and Rowe had once launched a nonprofit
organization for juveniles together; the group never got off the
ground.
Brown told The Post that he had encouraged Hill to apply for AIDS
money because the city was trying to do business with more community
groups. But Brown said he was not involved in Our Children while he was
at the city agency. He left that job in October 2005.
"I'm just as confused as the next person as to why he would have me"
listed on Our Children's documents, Brown said. "People use my
credentials. They think it looks good on their paperwork."
Our Children received a $300,000 grant in January 2005 from the
housing department. The group was awarded a grant for $227,000 a year
later. Much of the money was to pay rent for people with AIDS in
subsidized housing.
In 2005, auditors for the Inspector General's Office, as part of a
probe of city AIDS funding, found no signs of an AIDS group during a
visit to Our Children's office, located in a house in Southeast.
People who were supposed to have their rent paid by Hill started to
complain that their landlords were not getting the money. In January
2006, an e-mail was forwarded to Rowe about one case of nonpayment.
The renter, Ralph Black, told The Post that he had tried to call Our
Children to find out where the money was but could not reach anyone.
"I didn't quite know who was working there and who my contact person
was," said Black, 56, a former radar technician who has been living
with AIDS for several years. "They were supposed to be providing a case
manager for housing. My whole first year, I never saw a case manager."
Black's rent was eventually paid.
One month after Rowe was alerted to the rent problem, records show, she approved a request from Our Children for a lump-sum $50,000 advance on the grant money.
In mid-September 2006, the inspector general's auditors returned to Hill's office and again found "no business [was] being conducted."
That same month, HIV/AIDS Administration monitors once more noted
that Hill had not paid rent for a client, who now faced eviction. The
e-mail was forwarded to Rowe.
D.C. Council member David A. Catania called a hearing in October
2006 to discuss the city's AIDS program and the inspector general's
findings. That month, records show, Rowe sent a letter to Hill saying the Our Children's grant would not be continued.
At the hearing, Catania (I-At Large) told the HIV/AIDS Administration:
"I want the money back. . . . This is ongoing theft of District
taxpayer dollars. . . . We've been cheated."
Our Children has not returned any money, said HIV/AIDS Administration spokesman Michael Kharfen.
The Inspector General's Office continued its probe in late 2006,
based on a tip that Our Children had hired ghost employees.
Investigators located two of Hill's alleged employees, including
Charles Campbell, who acknowledged that he had provided false
information on his résumé. The investigators determined that Hill was
aware of the false information.
The Post found that Campbell, who was supposed to be paid $18,000,
had invented college credentials on his résumé. He could not be reached
for comment.
Investigators also found that Hill had submitted false information
on his own résumé, listing education credentials identical to
Campbell's. But they did not find any evidence that Hill billed the
city for people he did not employ.
Investigators were told the AIDS grant money was not awarded based
on the résumés, and the U.S. attorney's office declined to prosecute,
according to the inspector general's report.
Publicly, the matter was dropped. AIDS advocates years later still have questions about why more wasn't done.
"That's part of the problem in this city: Whose holding people
accountable?" said Harris, the AIDS case manager. "Everybody just keeps
getting paid. Don't nobody rock the boat."
Rowe told The Post that she never provided preferential treatment to
Hill and that the two had met during an AIDS gathering. She said she
had tried to get guidance from her supervisors early on about the
critical audit of Hill's tutoring program and whether his nonprofit
group should be funded. She said grants manager Jonathan Alston had
shrugged off her concerns.
Speaking through HIV/AIDS Administration spokesman Kharfen, Alston said Rowe never approached him about the matter.
Said Rowe: "Outright lie."
Alston said he stepped in later, prodding the Inspector General's Office to investigate.
Hill did not respond to repeated calls and letters seeking comment.
'Nobody did nothing'
Hill wasn't the only member of his family to receive AIDS funding.
A group run by his estranged wife, Marilyn Hill, began to receive
AIDS money about 2004, also from the housing department. All told,
Marilyn Hill's group, Hill's Community Residential Support Services,
was awarded more than $1 million over five years to provide housing.
City monitors cited staff turnover, deteriorating building
conditions, double-billing for salaries and questionable expenses on
invoices for jewelry, suede gloves, flowers and a fish tank.
In August 2007, a boarder in a Hill's Community house on Horner
Place Southeast called Rowe directly, complaining that there was no
staff, no telephone and no food, which can be dangerous to people with
AIDS, who are often advised to eat when taking some medications.
Monitor Sherita Grant verified the complaints during a site visit,
writing: "This writer is appealing to the management staff to give me
some direction on how [the HIV/AIDS Administration] intends to deal
with this matter. . . . I suggest . . . that [the nonprofit] be put on
a probation period."
Yet money continued to flow.
Rowe told The Post that she had tried to close the program but that
Gunther Freehill, another official in HIV/AIDS Administration, had
refused.
"Gunther just wasn't engaged. . . . If it would have been my stand-alone decision, I would have closed Hill's," Rowe said.
Rowe could not provide any reports or e-mails to document her
efforts to shut down the program. Through HIV/AIDS Administration
spokesman Kharfen, Freehill said Rowe never approached him about
closing the program.
Marilyn Hill did not respond to calls and letters seeking comment.
This year, after Rowe left the HIV/AIDS Administration, Hill's
Community was awarded $300,000 despite continued reports of problems.
In December, Tonie Rhones, a housing coordinator at another local
AIDS group, told monitors about the death of a woman who had been
staying at Hill's house on Warder Street NW. Rhones said she was told
about the incident by other women in the house.
The incident was also described to The Post by former Hill's
Community supervisor Anita Boardley, who said she read details in a
Hill's Community log book and had talked to members of the staff.
Accounts vary on what happened.
Rhones and Boardley said that Ruth Ann Tipton had fallen down a
flight of stairs and that a Hill's Community staffer did not
immediately call an ambulance. Later, when Tipton started moaning,
paramedics were called, Rhones and Boardley said.
A Hill's Community staffer told AIDS officials in an e-mail that
Tipton had fallen down the bottom steps only and had managed to get up
and go to her room. Paramedics were called the same day, the staffer
reported.
Tipton, 58, suffered internal bleeding and died in the hospital Dec. 3, funeral home and other records show.
In an e-mail to the HIV/AIDS Administration after Tipton's death, Marilyn Hill described the incident as a "sudden death," even though the records show Tipton fell Nov. 29 and died four days later.
Rhones said she urged the city to investigate.
"Nobody did nothing," Rhones said.
Kharfen said the agency asked the Inspector General's Office to
investigate. But Deputy Inspector General Austin Andersen said, "We
don't have any record of anyone referring that matter to us."
More problems emerged at a February site visit at the Warder Street house, when monitors found that W-2s for Hill's employees "didn't appear to be authentic," records show.
Employees said they had no medical, dental or life insurance even
though the Hill's budget with the HIV/AIDS Administration included
those expenses.
Monitors also found there had been no substance abuse groups since "staff hasn't been coming to work."
Boardley, the former Hill's Community supervisor, told The Post that
she once forged a signature on a time sheet for another employee at
Marilyn Hill's request and would put fake names on empty personnel
folders in case city monitors asked to review a list of employees. She
said Marilyn Hill would doctor payroll records at a Staples store on
Central Avenue in Maryland.
Boardley said Hill charged the HIV/AIDS Administration for several nonexistent employees:
an AIDS counselor, nutritionist, physical fitness instructor,
housekeeper and accountant. Names and résumés for the positions do not
appear in the financial reports submitted by Hill's to the HIV/AIDS
Administration.
Boardley provided The Post with documents that she said were fake,
including a CPR certification from the American Red Cross that she said
Marilyn Hill had given her. The Red Cross confirmed that Boardley had
not taken its CPR course. Hill did not respond to letters seeking
comment.
Boardley said that she agreed to help Hill with the documents
because she needed the job and that she did not realize she was helping
with fraudulent paperwork until May, when Boardley reviewed hundred of
records that she had not seen before.
All the while, Boardley and two others said the women who lived in the house often had no gas, electricity or hot water for bathing, laundry or cooking. When their clothes got dirty, they would wear them inside out.
"How could they get away with this?" said Boardley, who recently
left Hill's Community. She said Marilyn Hill still owes her money.
Although Hill had been billing the HIV/AIDS Administration for rent,
the owner of the house on Warder Street told The Post in August that
Hill hasn't forwarded the money and owed $20,000 in late rent payments
and fees.
"It's like hell," said Giada Stewart, who until recently lived in
the house. "There's no food. The gas was off. You can't cook. You can't
bathe. The electricity was off. The staff is not working. They write
grants that they're hiring so many people, but they're not. . . . What
do people do? Who can we turn to?"
HIV/AIDS Administration director Hader said the agency stopped
funding the program in early September and acknowledged that officials
should have taken action sooner.
'Serious concerns'
Money from Rowe's department also went to Lurn-N-Ern, a youth
education agency formed in 1997 by one-time D.C. Council candidate Mona
Odom, who had been an executive with the Girl Scouts of America in New
Mexico.
Odom told The Post that she started Lurn-N-Ern to help troubled kids
and that she applied for an AIDS grant looking for a new line of
business. Odom said she was qualified to do the work because she had
run computer classes and had helped women on welfare find jobs.
"I'm a motivator," she said. "When you own a business, you don't
have to have [any] background or skill. You look for the people who had
it."
In October 2005, Lurn-N-Ern was awarded a $135,000 grant to provide
housing for 20 women with AIDS over the course of a year at Odom's
four-bedroom house in Northeast.
"Come on over to our house," a Lurn-N-Ern flier said. "Put on your learning shoes."
On incorporation records, Odom's aunt was listed as Lurn-N-Ern's
president. The aunt, now 72, lived in Baltimore and had filed for
bankruptcy four times, records show.
Lurn-N-Ern's executive director was Odom's friend Benita Blaine, who
had a criminal record for theft, assault and prostitution. Blaine's
street name was "Peaches." In mid-2006, Blaine was indicted by a grand
jury in Alexandria of stealing a co-worker's credit card to buy a $209
Sony PlayStation. After her arrest, records show, she tested positive
for cocaine and the illegal hallucinogen PCP. She was sentenced to two
years' probation.
Blaine's salary at Lurn-N-Ern was set at $18,000. Odom said she
eventually let Blaine go because she wasn't showing up for work and
appeared to be using drugs.
Blaine said she left on her own because she did not like the way Odom was running the program.
According to a December 2005 budget, which changed throughout the
year, Odom planned to pay herself a salary of $47,000. She noted she
was also paying a night supervisor named Rachel Hunter, but The Post
found that the main credential and address on a résumé that Odom
submitted to the HIV/AIDS Administration did not match any known Rachel
Hunter.
By April 2006, seven months into the grant, only three clients had
enrolled in the program and one had dropped out. Monitor Monique Berry noted in a report that Rowe was aware of the problems: "Mona spoke to Debra Rowe and a recruitment plan was implemented. . . . Rowe decided not to reduce the grant at this time."
In May, Berry e-mailed Rowe and others,
saying: "I have concerns . . . they have only provided services to two
clients. . . . Please advise me on what actions to take."
Monitor Charis Ferguson e-mailed back: "Funding must be decrease[d]."
In October 2006, monitors went back to Lurn-N-Ern to look into complaints
from a former staff member and clients who said that Odom had been
stealing their food stamps and that night supervisor Rachel Hunter "did
not exist," records show.
Odom told The Post that Hunter is her mother, a 73-year-old New
Jersey resident. "She was just to be a filler person until I could find
someone to fill the spot," Odom said.
Odom acknowledged that the address on the résumé submitted to the city "might have been wrong."
Odom said she did not steal food stamps from her clients.
Two weeks after the October visit, with more than $100,000 in AIDS
money paid to Lurn-N-Ern, Odom withdrew from the program, citing high
costs in a letter to the HIV/AIDS Administration.
The next month, Rowe wrote to Odom, describing "multiple, serious concerns about performance of services."
Rowe told The Post that Lurn-N-Ern was funded because the HIV/AIDS
Administration at the time "wanted new players" to get involved in the
AIDS community. She said she eventually severed ties with the group.
Odom accused the HIV/AIDS Administration of failing to send enough
women to her program. Despite the lack of clients, Odom called her
program "a success."
"If it looks like I'm the bad guy, I can live with that," she said. "Life goes on."
'Ruined my life'
Rowe said that, in the end, politics brought her down.
She said she was fired only after she wrote a letter
to Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and others in February 2007
alleging that a staff member in D.C. Council member Catania's office
had ordered her to overlook federal policies to pay for housing for two
District residents with AIDS. Rowe said she believes the FBI was called
in retaliation.
She points to a February 2007 e-mail written by Smith, the Ryan
White Planning Council member, warning Catania about Rowe's pending
complaint.
"Debra Rowe is planning to blow the whistle on you. . . . This is
being done to divert attention away from her and some activities which
have come about regarding her personal affiliation with [Miracle Hands]
as well as some other activities," Smith wrote.
Said Rowe: "This has ruined my life. All of this started after I wrote that letter."
The inspector general investigated the allegations outlined in Rowe's letter, however, and found "no evidence of misconduct" among Catania's staff, records show.
The FBI confirmed that its investigation was launched in December 2006, three months before Rowe sent the letter.
City AIDS director Hader said Rowe was asked to step down, months
after the letter was written, because Hader found the housing program
in disarray.
"People create their own narratives," Hader said.
* * *
As the city juggled public controversies and problem nonprofit
groups, the entire staff at Joseph's House faced yet another budget
crisis. Last year, the group was awarded $485,000 from the HIV/AIDS
Administration, down from $750,000 four years earlier.
The staff at the well-regarded hospice in Northwest recently voted to take a pay cut rather than slash services or risk layoffs.
The city eventually gave the hospice money to save the jobs, but
Joseph's House needs more staff and renovations and an elevator for
sick boarders unable to navigate the stairs in the four-story house.
Head nurse Priscilla Norris does not have time to worry. Every month, there are new residents and, too often, another funeral.
On a dreary morning in June, she sat in the living room, hands
pressed together in prayer. The staff had gathered to remember people
who had died in the house in recent months, most of them from
complications related to AIDS. The group lit candles and read names.
Since 1990, more than 300 men and women have died in Joseph's House,
their pictures during happier times -- Tommy with a fishing pole,
Melvin playing Spades, Karen riding a bus -- crammed onto shelves,
mantels, tables and the top of an old piano.
There is no room left for pictures.
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
