In San Francisco, they don't know where they put all that COVID relief money they solicited from the public

In San Francisco, the lockdown enthusiasts at the height of COVID pandemic had a great solution for all the businesses and people put out of work by their lockdowns: A government-run charity -- which solicited and took donations from the public.

Here's a call for it from state Sen. Scott Weiner's own website:

If you are able to donate - and particularly if you usually donate to non-profits at galas and events that they have canceled this year - we strongly encourage you to do so. 

Government-coordinated giving programs: 

  • San Francisco is coordinating giving through give2sf.org.

Heather Knight at the San Francisco Chronicle, (who just got hired by the New York Times), appealed to the public to donate, too, scolding the billionaires for not donating more.

But they raised $30 million from the public, with billionaires and tech bigs drawing lots of favorable press for their generosity to the pitiful casualties of the lockdowns, and drew much hailing from San Francisco's mayor, London Breed:

San Francisco, CA — Mayor London N. Breed today announced the City has identified three priority areas for the immediate use of the Give2SF COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund: food security; access to housing; and security for workers and small businesses. The Hellman Foundation will contribute $1 million, and Ann and Gordon Getty will contribute $1 million to the Give2SF Fund. Mayor Breed announced additional contributions to the Give2SF Fund from Crankstart Foundation, Stupski Foundation, Tom and Theresa Preston-Werner, Cruise co‑founders Kyle Vogt and Dan Kan, and Mark Pincus. Salesforce and Wells Fargo previously announced contributions to the Fund.

“There are so many San Franciscans who are struggling to make rent, put food on the table, and keep their small business open,” said Mayor Breed. “That’s why we created the Give2SF Fund, which is collecting support for our small businesses and individuals who are dealing with the challenges of COVID-19. We are grateful for the generous contributions of private donors and philanthropic organizations who are supporting our efforts to take care of our residents during this incredibly difficult time.”

According to the San Francisco Standard, there were a lot of little guys who donated to the fund, too -- the website for the program accepted donations as low as $1, and the website itself said "you can donate any amount." Breed didn't mention them in her laudatory press release, but little guys pitched in to do their part for COVID, too.

And after all that hoopla, and all those $30 millions rolling in ... the City doesn't know what it did with the money.

According to the San Francisco Standard, much of it was transferred into gift cards for big box retailers (who are not plentiful in San Francisco) and then distributed to the afflicted:

An audit completed this year found that San Francisco’s Human Services Agency, which provides a range of welfare services including food and healthcare programs, ignored city rules when it came to distributing thousands of gift cards. It’s uncertain if any of the gift cards were stolen or went to ineligible recipients, but a lack of oversight created a situation ripe for “possible instances of fraud, theft, or abuse,” auditors for the City Controller’s Office wrote.

The audit focused on the handling of $2.5 million in gift cards purchased by the Human Services Agency between August 2017 and March 2021. Specific issues noted in the audit included a failure by city staff to conduct verification checks of gift card inventory, require updated lists of eligible gift card recipients and make sure partner organizations were complying with city rules.

All but one of the eight programs reviewed in the audit that received Human Services Agency gift cards—broken up into prepaid Visa debit cards and gift cards to Safeway and Target—received money from Give2SF’s COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund.
What a disgusting picture. They treated the public's hard-earned money like it was government money and then "lost" it.
 
Then they offered this ridiculous excuse:
 
“It was not possible in the midst of the early part of the pandemic to get over 2,000 people to personally sign for the gift cards and verify identities,” Human Services Agency officials said in an email. “In addition, at that point in the pandemic, in-person contact for receipt of the gift cards was not recommended from a public health perspective.”
 
Umm, if there's free money involved, it most certainly is possible.
 
Does this sound like a worthy charity to donate to after such a loud appeal and now such a result? The government at all levels spends oodles of money warning the public about private charity scams and ripoffs and sure enough, they missed this one. Meanwhile, the private sector has an entire cottage industry rating charities for overhead and accountability practices -- so how would this one rate?
 
The matter was made even worse by the fact that it was a government operation, which suggests the money would be handled properly. But neither the government agency, nor the eight NGOs they handed the cash to for distribution could properly account for where the cash went.
 
How hard is it to keep a $1.99 ledger book of who got what gift card and simply fill it in before handing it out? For them, it was too much to ask.
 
The city auditor made his recommendations that the agencies account for their handouts, but that seems a little elementary, given that that was what they should have done in the first place. The agencies here should be made to pay back any amounts they cannot account for, and their slovenly leaders fired, if not investigated for theft or creating the conditions for theft and fraud, given that that was what the city auditor said this situation was "ripe" for. If not that, they should be decommissioned as charity distributors. If they couldn't perform their jobs to just ordinary standards of accountability, why should the public ever trust the city again when a new appeal goes out? No wonder the billionaires, who tend to be savvier about these things, didn't donate as much as the city wanted. As for the members of the ordinary public who donated, they just got rolled.
 
Image: City of San Francisco // fair use
 

 

 

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