AEGiS-SFE: Mission Housing under scrutiny City audit raises questions about nonprofit

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Mission Housing under scrutiny City audit raises questions about nonprofit

San Francisco Examiner- December 16, 2005
Justin Jouvenal, jjouvenal@examiner.com

A nonprofit affordable housing developer that has received $40 million in public funding over the last five years and provides housing and services to 1,900 tenants has mishandled its finances, may have failed to provide critical social services to some residents and has an ineffective system for monitoring the safety and upkeep of its buildings, according to a city audit.

The audit also revealed the Mission Housing Development Corporation failed to repay nearly $1 million in loans to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency in 2004 because of the disorganization of its finances and at one housing site, Bayview Commons, the corporation did not know how services were being provided to HIV-positive clients, despite a contract to do so.

At another site, Rich Sorro Commons, the corporation received a $1 million grant to provide health care and psychological services for HIV-positive clients, but the audit found it no longer provides some of the services on-site or has a person to administer them.

Other services Mission Housing is supposed to provide include food deliveries, home health care, after-school programs, energy bill payments and transportation.

The corporation manages and owns 36 properties around San Francisco from two- or three-unit buildings to single-room-occupancy hotels with dozens of units. The tenants earn on average $5,000 to $10,000 a year and include families with children, seniors, the formerly homeless, HIV-positive people and persons with disabilities.

"Mission Housing has the big-picture responsibility to make sure their buildings are well-maintained and have service plans in place - they are not there right now," said Peg Stevenson, a director with the City ControllerÆs Ofiice.

Larry Del Carlo, the president of the corporation, acknowledged there were management issues, but said Mission Housing was making improvements and would implement all of the auditÆs recommendations.

"Do we have gaps in our management? Absolutely. We went through a very serious transition over the last year where we had a nearly 100 percent turnover of our staff," Del Carlo said. "Even though we have problems, we are still creating quality affordable housing."

The Board of Supervisors requested the audit after complaints from corporation clients.

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