Washington Blade - November 17, 2006
Lou Chibbaro Jr

William DiVello, Assistant Inspector General for Audits, said last week that the city's Administration for HIV Policy & Programs told his office it suspended grant funding to Our Children, Inc., a faith-based group that had been paid to place low-income people with HIV and AIDS in rental housing subsidized by the city.

This week, Leila Abrar, a spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Health, which has jurisdiction over the administration, said administration officials "terminated" its grant arrangement with Our Children after determining that the non-profit group "was not following [U.S Department of Housing & Urban Development's Housing for People with AIDS] processing guidelines" for finding rental housing for low-income people with HIV or AIDS.

"All clients were transferred to other providers," Abrar said. "There was no loss of services."

The city obtained funding for the grant from the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development's Housing for People With AIDS, or HOPWA, program.

Sherman L. Hill Jr., executive director of Our Children, disputed the findings of an audit conducted by investigators with the Inspector General's office, saying the investigators appear to have visited the wrong address.

"What happened was we had moved our location, and when they came out, they came to the wrong place," Hill said. "That's why they didn't find us. So they thought that we had not delivered the services."

Hill said Our Children moved in early 2005 to its current location in a private house at 1934 Good Hope Rd., S.E. Before that, Hill said the group operated out of another private house at 1520 W St., S.E., one block from the historic site of the Frederick Douglas mansion.

DiVello said investigators with the Inspector General's office were aware of both places and looked into the Good Hope Road location.

"We made visits to both places," he said. "We provided information we obtained to AHPP. They decided to suspend the grant after reviewing the vendor," DiVello said.

News about the Inspector General's probe into Our Children first surfaced publicly at an Oct. 23 D.C. Council hearing called by At-Large Councilmember David Catania, who serves as chair of the Council's Committee on Health.

A copy of the Our Children Grant, obtained by the Blade this week from the DOH, shows that it provided a "non-competitive" award for $227,327 to enable the group to "continue to provide tenant-based rental assistance for 18-20 homeless men, women and children." Marsha Martin, senior deputy director of DOH, who serves as head of the administration, signed the grant Dec. 21, 2005, the document shows.

Gregg Pane, director of the DOH, signed the grant on Jan. 18, 2006, and Hill, who is listed on the grant as Our Children's executive director, signed the document Feb. 7, 2006.

Abrar said she could not determine by press time whether Our Children spent all or some of the $227,327 as of the time the administration terminated the grant.

The D.C. Office of the Chief Financial Officer, which disburses money from the city's treasury to vendors working for city agencies, disbursed a payment of $7,450 to Our Children in fiscal year 2007, which began Oct. 1, 2006, according to office spokesperson Maryann Young.

It could not be determined by press time whether the fiscal year 2007 payment means AHPP extended its grant to Our Children for another period of time, just prior to learning about the problems uncovered by the Inspector General's audit, or whether that payment was for services rendered at an earlier date.

DiVello declined to provide further details on how investigators concluded that Our Children wasn't providing housing services to clients. He also declined to disclose the amount of funding the group received through the AIDS administration grant. Any additional information would have to come from the administration, he said.

Martin did not respond to requests for an interview. Calls placed to her through her administrative assistant, Michael Tietjen, and through D.C. Department of Health spokesperson Abrar were not returned.

As the Blade went to press late Wednesday, Michael Kharfen, a newly hired administration spokesperson, said administration grant monitors were the first to discover that Our Children was not fulfilling its grant requirements. He said the administration alerted the Inspector General's office about the grant monitors' concerns, and that office then opened its investigation into Our Children. The Inspector General's office could not be reached for comment on Kharfen's account of how the probe began.

Kharfen said Our Children had been making rent subsidy payments on behalf of its clients, as specified under the grant, but was not keeping adequate records. He said the administration had also received some complaints from clients that the group was not responding to their problems associated with rental housing. Kharfen said Our Children had a three-year grant and that the administration terminated the grant at the end of the second year.

14 vendors operating illegally

In response to questioning by Catania at the Oct. 23 D.C. Council hearing, Inspector General's office officials identified Our Children as one of a number of vendors discovered in the audit to be improperly carrying out the terms of city contracts and grants for AIDS-related services.

The findings of the audit are outlined in a 31-page report released on Oct. 20. According to the report, the audit found that another 14 vendors providing AIDS-related services were operating illegally because they did not have the required licenses to conduct business in the District of Columbia.

It said the audit also found that another two vendors received city grant funds even though another city agency, the Department of Consumer & Regulatory Affairs, had revoked their articles of incorporation. One vendor failed to obtain Medicaid certification, causing the city to lose $455,835 in federal reimbursements from the federal Medicaid program, the report said.

The report does not identify any of the problem vendors. The Inspector General's office and administration officials did not disclose the names of these vendors, other than Our Children, during the Catania hearing, even though city officials have said all city contracts and grants are public documents.

The Blade filed a Freedom of Information Act request two weeks ago with the Inspector General's office to obtain copies of the grants awarded to the vendors that are mentioned but not identified in the audit. As of Nov. 15, the Inspector General's office had not provided the documents sought in the freedom of information request.

Corporate charter revoked

Public records from the Office of Corporations at the Department of Consumer & Regulatory Affairs show that the office revoked the corporate charter for Our Children, Inc. in 2005 after the group failed to file a corporate report required every two years along with required fees.

According to department records, it first approved the group's status as a non-profit corporation on Jan. 16, 2002.

The articles of incorporation filed by Our Children at that time state that its purpose was to "provide spiritual guidance and instruction so as to deter crime and violence and promote positive social relations through proclaiming the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to the citizens of the District of Columbia and adjoining cities, states and counties."

Both children and adults would be among those the organization would reach out to, the articles say, and that the group would promote "a sense of respect for self and others for all cultures by exposing participants to various spiritual, social and cultural experiences."

Hill said he was unaware that his group's corporate status had been revoked. He faxed the Blade a copy of Our Children's business license, which he noted was renewed in September 2005 and extends through August 2007. The business license lists the group's address as 1520 W St. Hill acknowledged that it had been issued before the group moved to its Good Hope Road location, and that some city officials might not have been aware of the move.

2 principle residences

Records from the city's Real Property Services Office show that Hill bought the house on Good Hope Road in January 2005 for $195,000. The records show that his mailing address, for tax purposes, is at a house at 12505 Trelawn Terrace in Bowie, Md. Maryland property records show that Hill owns the Trelawn Terrace house jointly with his wife, Marilyn Hill, and has listed it as his "principle residence."

The D.C. property records show that Hill has also listed his house at 1934 Good Hope Road as his principle residence, in order to allow him to receive the city's homestead deduction to reduce his property taxes. D.C. law prohibits property owners from receiving the homestead deduction unless they reside in the property and use it as their principle residence.

Maryland real estate records show that Sherman and Marilyn Hill bought their Trelawn Terrace house in Bowie in February 2004 for $800,000 and the couple has now placed the house on the market for sale for $1.85 million. Under state and federal law, the couple is eligible for a $500,000 exemption in capital gains taxes if they have lived in the Bowie house for at least two years over the past five years and if they use the house as their principle residence.

When asked last week about the Bowie house, Hill said, "That's where I lived at one time."

Hill could not be reached this week to comment on why Washington and Maryland property records show that he has listed both the Good Hope Road house and the Bowie house as his principle residences.

D.C. zoning laws allow citizens to operate certain businesses within their homes. Property records show that Our Children, Inc., operated out of a total of three private homes since it was founded in 2002: 1613 New Jersey Ave., N.W., its first official address; 1520 W St., S.E.; and its current location at 1934 Good Hope Rd., S.E.

Property records show that Hill bought the New Jersey Avenue house in 1997 for $77,000 and sold it Nov. 1, 2004 for $400,000.

The D.C. Inspector General's audit report concluded that the administration's grant award process "did not provide sufficient management controls to ensure that HIV/AIDS grants are awarded to qualified providers/subgrantees."

During the Catania hearing, Martin and DOH Director Pane acknowledged the problems found in the audit and promised to take immediate steps to correct them.

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