WM: This is very sad. After looking at the audit report, I see that most of the problems pre-date Earl Rogers being hired as Director. Talking to Earl a few months ago, he thought he had cleared up all but one of the problems which he had inherited, and he thought his own record was pretty clear of mistakes.
In October 2002, the Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) Policy Board requested that the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) perform a contract compliance review of Southside Neighborhood Housing Services, Inc.
The review found that there were numerous problems within SNHS. Funds were used for ineligible purposes and recipients, numerous files lacked required documentation, and financial management practices were questionable at best.
I noticed that the audit cited two mistakes made in 2002. One of the "disallowed" uses of money was for a neighborhood cleanup requested by Central (rakes, gloves, bags, candy, etc. is a neighborhood cleanup signal). As a former CentralNIA board member, I would have thought that our NRP funds did allow for neighborhood cleanup. I was not on board when this one happened, but had I been I would have approved a neighborhood cleanup as a good use for NRP funds. Since NRP money is only released after the fact, I'm surprised the NRP signed off for a disallowed use.
This is a very sad loss for the Southside. SNHS had worked extremely hard to clean up their mistakes and set a course they believed would keep them on an even keel. I feel sad for Earl and Heidi and their kids, there has got to be a lot of pain behind striving and striving so hard only to be shot down through mistakes, most of which were made before you came to work at SNHS. I feel bad for everyone who worked there, they just lost their jobs I feel sorry for the board; it, too, was a largely, if not entirely new board three years or so ago. I feel bad for we Southsiders who had come to rely on SNHS' presence as a resource for buying homes, writing second mortgages, and rewriting mortgages for better interest rates particularly during the worst of the red lining years. Actually, I feel rotten about this all the way around.
WizardMarks, Central
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