Complaint to HUD re: City of Rochester Grants Mismanagement

Complaint to HUD re: City of Rochester Grants Mismanagement

July 18th, 2007
HUD OIG Hotline
451 7th St., SW
Washington, DC 20410

HUD OIG Hotline:

I am writing to file a complaint regarding the grants process at the City of Rochester's Bureau of Human Services. On behalf of Friends Helping Friends, the City of Rochester has blacklisted our organization from receiving HUD funding through the City of Rochester, particularly through the Bureau of Human Service's grants process without giving an adequate reason as to why our organization has been blacklisted. I am unsure as to Friends Helping Friends has been blacklisted, but I think that a powerful businessman has influenced City Hall Commissioner(s) to block funding for Friends Helping Friends. I am only contacting the HUD OIG Hotline after exhausting all possiblities of resolving the matter through dialogue within City of Rochester through the Bureau of Human Services, Mayor's Office and the City of Rochester's newly instated Public Integrity Unit. I think it's grants mismanagement for the City of Rochester to refuse to fund grassroots organizations with HUD money due to personal politics. Friends Helping Friends has a right to criticize City of Rochester policy as we see fit; the City of Rochester's most recent mayor (Mayor Johnson) was accused of improper handling of public funds in a recent economic development project (the Fast Ferry).

Friends Helping Friends originally filed a grant application for funding of a youth development oriented bicycle project in 2005 as a fiscal sponsor for Second Life Bikes, an unincorporated organization consisting of Ray Fitzgerald, a publicly acclaimed private individual, and several volunteers. Ray Fitzgerald (d/b/a Second Life Bikes) ran a free bike shop for kids out of his house in the most violent, crime-ridden neighborhood in the City of Rochester. The City of Rochester had tentatively agreed to multi-year funding with Second Life Bikes/Friends Helping Friends in August of 2005, but cancelled the funding as a result of Ray Fitzgerald moving to Florida in September of 2005.
On behalf of Friends Helping Friends, I contacted the Bureau of Human Services in early 2006 to re-apply for funding for the same youth development oriented bicycle project. Friends Helping Friends had some organizational problems and there were unpleasant organizational separation issues when Mr. Fitzgerald moved to Florida; I asked if FHF was eligible for funding through the City of Rochester prior to applying for funding. Jackie Campbell and Ted Naylon met with me and Ms. Campbell agreed that I was eligible for “transitional funding” since FHF was waiting for a small federal grant to disperse. I re-wrote the budgets and provided additional information to Ted Naylon, who verbally assured me that we would receive grant funding later in 2006 (the funding was a “done deal”). While contacting one of the BHS staff members in August of 2006, I learned that my $10,000 grant was canceled; I sent correspondence requesting information on why the grant was cancelled. Jackie Campbell sent me written correspondence a month or so later telling me that FHF's grant was cancelled due to a negative recommendation from the Rochester Area Community Foundation, one of FHF's previous funders that asserted that FHF had failed to complete our reporting to that foundation. FHF had problems with the RACF slandering us in the past, (see attached complaint re: the Rochester Area Community Foundation to the US Council on Foundations).

I contacted Richard Vega, the Public Integrity Unit Director about the multi-faceted harrassment I was experiencing while interacting with City Hall. Mr. Vega told me that Friends Helping Friends would not be able to receive funding through the City of Rochester. I made a Freedom of Information Act request to the City of Rochester requesting all written materials relating to Second Life Bikes/Friends Helping Friends in relation to the Bureau of Human Services, as well as Mary Magdalene House, a City of Rochester contractor through the Bureau of Human Services and all materials relating to the RACF's negative recommendation to the City of Rochester.

Friends Helping Friends hired a lawyer to send correspondence warning of litigation to the Rochester Area Community Foundation if the RACF didn't stop lying about FHF. I then met with Ted Naylon, Jackie Campbell and Deputy Commissioner JudieLynn McAvinney where I told them that I would like to have the letter of the negative referral from the RACF, so I could sue them for slander/defamation; we also talked about Friends Helping Friends and the possiblity of FHF receiving funding through the City of Rochester. I asked Ms. McAvinney & Ted Naylon if FHF could receive funding using another organization as a fiscal sponsor, so that FHF's name would not automatically cancel the funding as it had done before. Ted Naylon met with me FHF's warehouse to have a more casual “man to man” talk; Mr. Naylon told me that FHF was indeed blacklisted because of our outspoken political beliefs that criticized the mismanagement of funding through the Economic Development dept. Mr. Naylon wished me well and encouraged me to be less political in the future, advising me that FHF would not be able to change the system. I learned through my Freedom of Information Act request that the negative RACF recommendation was entirely verbal and there was no written documentation whatsoever. In addition, I learned that there was no documentation whatsoever on Mary Magdalene House's grant funding because the MMH was “recommended” by someone important at City Hall. As I understand it, Mary Magdalene House was funded to pay the staffing costs of a former prostitute to keep current prostitutes off of Lyell Avenue. The high prostitution rate on Lyell Avenue was a concern of the Lyell Avenue Business Association and residents in general for years; I believe such funding was made possible through the Emergency Shelter Housing funding through the Bureau of Human Services. In addition, I found record of an additional written correspondence rom Mr. Fitzgerald that seemed to contain misleading information about FHF that was omitted from the FOIA request. I requested the attachment and Mr. Naylon fiegned ignorance in the matter; beliveing the email was inconsequential, I did not pursue the matter at that time. After meeting with Mr. Naylon, I emailed Ms. McAvinney & Mr. Vega and accused the City of Rochester of grants mismanagement and told them that I did not need to know why FHF's funding was cancelled in the previous round, but that I wanted to be eligible to apply for funding through the City of Rochester; if Friends Helping Friends were not eligible to apply for funding through the City of Rochester that I would contact the funders of the block grant and complain about grants mismanagement. I had also sent correspondence complaining of the harassment that FHF was dealing withto the Mayor's Office. The Mayor's Office sent correspondence insinuating that the City of Rochester's Economic Development dept. had cancelled our funding.

Mr. Vega and Ms. McAvinney then asked to meet with me in person and asked what had happened during the partnership dissolution between Second Life Bikes and Friends Helping Friends. Although Mr. Fitzgerald had moved to Florida, some of the volunteers left in Rochester decided to continue Second Life Bikes while Ray Fitzgerald coordinated the operation from FL. Friends Helping Friends was forced to remove Second Life Bikes & Mr. Fitzgerald from a number of grant applications due to a number of very serious reasons. Mr. Fitzgerald contacted all of the funders and made a number of obviously false and misleading statement about Friends Helping Friends and myself in an effort to directly get funding for Second Life Bikes in Rochester. Ray Fitzgerald had sent such correspondence to the City of Rochester, as well. After we discussed the matter and I explained what happened, Ms. McAvinney and Mr. Vega agreed that the problems associated with the partnership dissolution were not FHF's fault and that we had acted in an appropriate manner. Ms. McAvinney encouraged me to apply for funding for the bicycle-related youth programming again and that Mr. Vega would make sure that no-one would cancel the funding again. Ms. McAvinney told me to re-apply for funding while partnering with the Rochester City School District and incorporating literacy. I quickly designed an effective program that partnered with the RCSD and incorporated literacy in a practical manner. After months passed, I contacted Ted Naylon & Jackie Campbell about the status of my application. Ted Naylon & Ms. Campbell both verbally told me that previous contractors had been funded and that there was additional money available to provide funding for FHF, but that I would probably not be funded. I attempted to make contact with Ms. McAvinney through phone calls, written correspondence and email. Ms. McAvinney refused to return any of my inquiries to tell me the status of FHF's application. I then requested that Ted Naylon release the correspondence from Mr. Fitzgerald; Ted Naylon aknowledged in writing that he had the correpondence from Mr. Fitzgerald, but refused to do so on the grounds that the letter was originally addressed to a different private funder (not a reason to deny a FOIA request), then Mr. Naylon responded in writing that he had no idea what correspondence I was talking about. After many other hassles, I finally got the correspondence from Mr. Fitzgerald. Although the correspondence made me/FHF look bad, most of the letter were trivial complaints (Mr. Stankevich ate our food without asking) or obvious manipulations of the truth (Mr. Stankevich made Second Life Bikes dependent on Friends Helping Friends; translation: FHF bought a building for SLB to work out of and did all of our fundraising for us). Mr. Fitzgerald didn't actually make any legitmate, substantial claims against FHF. Mr. Naylon left his job (got fired) at the City of Rochester shortly afterwards. I contacted Rich Vega and told him of the current situation and asked to know why & who had turned down my application from the previous grant cycle. Mr. Vega refused to provide any information and sarcastically told me that he would send Ted Naylon out to talk to me again.

Friends Helping Friends got into an ugly personal dispute with Bruno Coccia of Microera Printers when Friends Helping Friends leased its first food cupboard facility from Mr. Coccia. I felt that Mr. Coccia was a crook who routinely defrauded his tenants (especially us) and took advantage of economic development funding through the City of Rochester and federal Small Business Administration. As a landlord, Mr. Coccia and his associated repeatedly cheated and defrauded our small grassroots nonprofit organization; when Mr. Coccia forced us out of business in August of 2005, I complained to the news media and effectively exposed Mr. Coccia's dishonest business practices. In retaliation, I believe that Mr. Coccia compelled the Commissioners of the City of Rochester to leverage negative outcomes against Friends Helping Friends as whistle-blower payback (see attached City Hall harrassment narrative). When Mr. Coccia evicted Friends Helping Friends from our food cupboard facility, I orchestrated an eviction stand-off to secure major media coverage of what I felt were dishonest business practices and failed economic development efforts. Some business leaders in the community found my use of the media and other tactics during the eviction to be unethical and the eviction stand-off sparked a community-wide dispute and leveraged considerable negative outcomes against FHF (see attached Eviction Story narrative). I sent Mr. Vega a copy of the Eviction Story narrative and asked him if he had the story before and if the incident has any lasting impact in my ability to do business with the City of Rochester. Rich Vega responded by saying that “there were those that did not care for your tactics, but have agreed to abide by the law from now on.” Mr. Vega later denied that the story ever came up at all.

I also think that this is a texbook example of govt. entities discriminating against small, grassroots organizations. Friends Helping Friends was directly awarded funding through the Compassion Capital Fund for excellent grassroots organizations. I belong to the faith-based, missionary Catholic Worker movement which calls for voluntary poverty, witnessing for peace and justice, as well as being personally involved with charitable work of providing services to those in need. www.catholicworker.org Most Catholic Worker groups do not seek out foundation or govt. funding for the belief that the modern charity state is fundamentally immoral and that Catholic Worker groups will not be treated fairly. Although as pacifists, Catholic Workers are opposed to the current Bush Administration, the “Unlevel Playing Field” (the report that launched the “faith-based initiative”) agrees strongly that most federal funders don't evaluate federal contractors beyond the spending of the money and that govt. funders do not treat grassroots organizations fairly and have a “prevasive and unwarranted suspicion” of grassroots organizations. I've enclosed newspaper articles and press clippings on Friends Helping Friends.

The Unlevel Playing Field Report:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/unlevelfield.html

I think that the City of Rochester allow FHF to participate in City of Rochester grants programs and should provide compensatory funding for the funding opportunities that the City wrongly cancelled on FHF, as well as all of the unpaid time I've spent trying to correct this situation. I've enclosed email conversations between myself, Deputy Commissioner JudieLynn McAvinney, Public Integrity Unit Director Richard Vega and Grants Specialist Ted Naylon. These are only a few of the email conversations that I had with these individuals. I have copies of, but excluded the emails from the first grant period. In addition, I included a copy of the most recent grant application that FHF submitted to the City of Rochester and a recent federal grant that FHF submitted to the Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention. I also included a response to a FOIA request that shows that no written correspondence was required for the Mary Magdalene House grant, a written response from the Mayor of Rochester and from Jackie Campbell, providing an excuse as to why our transitional grant was cancelled, a letter from our lawyer refuting the RACF public statements re: FHF, the 367 Lyell Avenue Eviction story, a narrative describing the general harassment FHF was/is experiencing through City Hall & background on the Coccia/Stankevich dispute, a letter of complaint to the national Council on Foundations re: the Rochester Area Community Foundation.

Please keep me informed on any updates or findings in this case.

Sincerely,

Andrew Stankevich
Friends Helping Friends