Cry to probe city shelters

Pol: State must fight abuse

ALBANY — A Queens lawmaker wants the state comptroller to take a look at the books of the city’s top homeless shelter providers.

Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi is asking Thomas DiNapoli to audit 12 nonprofits responsible for housing and helping homeless New Yorkers and probe whether taxpayer money is being spent efficiently as homelessness rates continue to climb.

Hevesi, chairman of the Assembly’s social services committee, said he’s seen many problems plaguing shelters in recent years, including exorbitant salaries for top executives and facilities with major safety and maintenance concerns.

“While some providers use all of their resources appropriately and provide exemplary services, it is also clear that many providers are failing to achieve their mission. In fact, the overall average length of shelter stays has increased, as has the rate of clients subsequently returning after leaving,” the Democrat wrote to the comptroller in a letter obtained by the Daily News.

In January, the Coalition for the Homeless found that a record number of people — nearly 64,000 — were living in city shelters. As of September, there were 62,391 homeless, including 14,962 families with 22,083 children, according to the advocacy group.

More than 114,000 students — one out of every 10 — was homeless during the 2018-2019 school year, according to a survey released last month by the education nonprofit Advocates for Children.

As the number of people relying on city shelters has grown, so too has the amount of issues at the facilities, Hevesi (photo) said.

“There are several providers whose services strip the dignity of their clients and put clients in dangerous situations and that shouldn’t be occurring with these huge sums of taxpayer money that we’re putting into this industry,” the lawmaker told The News.

Earlier this month, a 22-year-old man was stabbed to death by his roommate on the front steps of an Upper West Side shelter. A week before, a 38-year-old was killed outside a shelter in East Elmhurst, Queens.

The dangers at city shelters go beyond violence.

Just last month, half a dozen people were sickened at a Brooklyn shelter after they were served rancid chicken salad. Others have complained of shelters rationing toilet paper.

Hevesi asked DiNapoli to look into allegations of shelter staff dealing drugs and stealing from residents as well as medical personnel failing to provide medication or mecidal care.

He added that there are consistent allegations of failures to report abuse, hold staff accountable, and claimed there is a culture at the nonprofits that makes staff wary of making whistleblower complaints.

There are “webs of interconnected nonprofits and subsidiaries that pay each other large sums of taxpayer dollars for services with the same or financially connected executives” and “allegations of managerial misconduct, including the creation of a hostile work environment that promoted misogyny, bullying, abuse and harassment” at some of the institutions, Hevasi wrote.

A spokeswoman for DiNapoli’s office said it has received Hevesi’s letter and is reviewing the matter.

Gov. Cuomo announced earlier this month that his office is investigating the Acacia Network, the city’s largest homeless services provider, after The News exposed the nonprofit for demanding a mother of three stop calling the city’s 311 complaint line if she wanted to renew her lease in a squalid Bronx apartment. Hevesi noted that all of the top vendors, which include Acacia, have contracts worth well over $200 million.

One group has a deal worth $1 billion, three others have contracts for between $450 million to $500 million each, and the other eight vendors have contracts ranging from $200 million to $400 million each.

In addition, there are 129 vendors with smaller contracts from the Department of Homeless Services

Acacia, which has already raked in $183 million in city contracts this year alone, said the nonprofit will comply with any future probes.

“Throughout our years of service to New York, Acacia Network has always complied with audits from a multitude of state and city agencies — and we will continue to do so in the future,” spokesman John Schiumo told The News.