The Palo Verde Apartments in Sun Valley has become the scene of another scandal.
Where are the real journalists for the Daily News or the Jewish Journal to investigate and report the whole story instead of doing the usual PR spin cloaked as news to scratch the back of the CEO?
Word on the street is that another employee of Los Angeles Family Housing has been fired in recent months, this time a woman who was embezzling money from the "clients" rental money. LAFH and Palo Verde Apartments needs a forensic accountant.
How could this go on and no one notice?
Most residents of this building pay a portion of their rent, even though they are on a BUILDING BASED VOUCHER. Which means that if they move out of the building they must get a different voucher such as a Section 8 voucher or make a go of it on their own, perhaps in a room for rent in a house. Some of these housing vouchers are given on the basis that the person is or was experiencing mental health problems or simply they have endured a great deal of poverty for a long period of time and have no where else to turn. Some of these people want to get well and are looking for work or going to school to redirect their lives. They live on very little money as is.
They paid their rent, it went into an account, and then the money, and we hear it was a hell of a lot, went missing.
What about this woman who was fired for embezzling? Where is she working now when she should be sitting in prison?
Since two employees of Los Angeles Family Housing Valley Shelter, heterosexual men, have been fired or chose to "move on" since 2008 for sexual harassment and/or actually taking homeless women to apartments or motel rooms for sex, and in at least one case the homeless person was told that if she did not have sex she would not get housing, you'd think that the case managers and other employees would start getting serious about being paid professionals working with a very desperate and dependent population. You'd think that they'd be afraid of loosing their jobs or careers even if their own personal moral compass was spinning, but they sure seem to be empowered by a tolerant management and a management that DOES NOT WANT THE NEIGHBORHOOD, LAW ENFORCEMENT, or CONTRIBUTORS or FUNDERS to know the truth.
We've heard of other situations since then - heterosexual and homosexual - in which case managers do not have healthy boundaries when dealing with homeless residents. WHAT A HORRIBLE THING TO DO, to threatened a person who has experienced homelessness and is at the shelter in order to get housing, with the loss of that opportunity because they will not "comply" with sexual or other unreasonable demands. Yet we hear that the heterosexual men who were fired just went to work in some other social worker job here in Southern California.
It's a shame that so many social services agencies in Los Angeles, particularly in the San Fernando Valley, feel so confident that when they refer someone who comes to them for help to LAFH, they will be going to a good place and end up in a good place.
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