It seems we have yet another glaring example of how some homeless nonprofits are exploiting LA taxpayers.
This recent revelation sheds light on the issue:
According to media coverage, Carol Adelkoff, who serves as the CEO of 1736 Family Crisis Center, has reportedly received over $1.6 million in compensation over the past two years. Surprisingly, much of this time was spent in the luxury of Hawaii.
Adelkoff is apparently residing long-term in a spacious 3,700-square-foot home in Hawaii, while she claims to be at the helm of a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles and Orange County.
The appropriate word that springs to mind for this situation is shameless.
While Adelkoff lived large in the land of mai tais and tropical breezes, the addicts of Skid Row just kept spiraling.
Obvious question: Where’s the oversight from City Hall? (Hold the laughter, please.)
Mayor Karen Bass, City Council Housing and Homeless Committee Chairwoman Nithya Raman and the rest of the council need to get a grip on what taxpayers are actually getting for the billions of dollars the city pours into the homelessness crisis.
The answer the comes to mind? Bupkis. Per the most recent homeless count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, homelessness in LA climbed by 3.4% — despite the obscene amount of money the city dumps on the problem.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has suspended funding to LAHSA — which LA merrily continues to fund –– amid allegations of fraud and financial mismanagement. The homeless authority has made a desperate plea in court to reclaim the frozen federal funds, The California Post reported this week.
The entire mess is an embarrassment as large as Skid Row, which consumes an astonishing 50 blocks of Los Angeles.
Yet off in the land of hula, mango and poke, Adelkoff gorges on taxpayer dollars.
About 94% of the $15 million a year her nonprofit collects flows from taxpayers, per the organization’s tax filings.
It should go without saying: All but a tiny fraction of those millions should go toward ending homelessness, rather than personally enriching the CEO.
Yes, nonprofit leaders should draw a fair salary. But homeless-services executive is a humble job –– or should be.
It should be about serving others, not serving oneself.
It should be about pulling others out of misery, not living in luxury oneself.
And it should be about guiding homeless services on the ground here in California, not phoning it in from across an ocean.
Even if Adelkoff works 70 hours a week, as she claims, the math — $1.6 million for her, misery for the 45,000 Angelenos living on the streets — doesn’t work.
Nor does it matter whether or not her massive payout was juiced by unused vacation time.
Either way, it smacks of the homeless-industrial-complex racket: Nonprofits have an incentive to entrench, rather than reduce, homelessness — all the better to keep the tax-funded largesse flowing.
It’s way past time for Bass, Raman and the council to clean up the messes they’ve allowed and created: both on the streets and in the C-suites of homeless-aid groups.