LUCERNE — The Lucerne Area Town Hall, for the second consecutive month, discussed community concerns with Oroville-based Elijah House Thursday. They voted unanimously to authorize Chair Kurt McKelvey to make a complaint about the nonprofit (which still operates a facility in Lucerne) to the Lake County Civil Grand Jury on behalf of the Northshore based advisory Council.
Several members of a program designed to provide transitional employment to residents in various Northern California counties including Mendocino, Contra Costa and Humboldt and subcontracted to the out of county nonprofit were temporarily suspended without pay for over a week but were cleared to return to work this week, according to Yeshelle Sparks, a victim advocate and resident who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting on the item. This comes in the wake of the only shelter in Lakeport closing prematurely last month, resulting in displacement of several residents housed at the facility.
The Elijah House Foundation, which until recently had operated the shelter at the old juvenile hall facility in Lakeport, has been fielding a crew of approximately six to 12 residents paid $15 an hour to work eight hour shifts in Lake, Mendocino and nearby Colusa Counties, among other areas, providing daily litter abatement services, but the program appears to be outside of the scope of work outlined in their original contract with the County of Lake, a contract which is no longer in place due to the nonprofit’s announcement they would no longer staff the Lakeport facility starting this month.
The contract originally entered into by the County and the Elijah House Foundation for Fiscal Year 2020-21, stipulated compensation to the contractor, originally not to exceed $234,550 but was amended in November 2020 to read “not to exceed $376,834.73” The contract was extended and amended several times, but spelled out among the organization’s responsibilities shelter, case management and support services. Litter abatement was not part of that.
According to the organization’s website, the Elijah House Foundation recruited partners include sober housing programs, veterans services, the California Department of Rehab, Dax-It, tribal agencies and local Alcoholic and Narcotics Anonymous groups. The Back 2 Work program is funded by a sweeping $1.1 billion, multiyear clean-up effort led by Caltrans in partnership with the Butte County Office of Education, but the BCOE does not list Lake County among the counties officially served by the Back 2 Work program, despite having had workers from the now shuttered Lakeport shelter on the payroll transported to work in Ukiah and other counties, and despite Elijah House operating a sober living environment program at the privately owned facility based in Lucerne.
Suspended without pay, reinstated after internal probe, “They are inevitably going to lose their jobs.”
Sparks, who told the council her nephew, his girlfriend and two employees were hired out of the now shuttered Lakeport shelter, were in and out of meetings last week with Elijah House H.R. representatives in the Northshore, were questioned about their dealings with local media and were told they would ultimately be paid for the time they were initially suspended without pay following an internal investigation conducted by the organization.
Sparks said the young workers were grilled and intimidated by Elijah House personnel and supervisors, including Shift Supervisor Mike Kimsey and former Lakeport shelter On-Site Manager Gary Deas, who now oversees the Back 2 Work program from Oroville, in regards to possible violations of a non-disclosure agreement they signed as a condition of employment and about their responses to local media about their participation in the program. According to the employees, the onboarding process was fast and cumbersome, with little time allowed for workers to read through the details of all the paperwork upon their initial hire.
Sparks also stated her nephew’s girlfriend notified Elijah House of instances of sexual harassment, “but they barely addressed it.” Sparks said rural areas like Lake County experience a lot of poverty and drugs, “They are abusing their clients and their funding,” said Sparks and added that she is sure the workers will inevitably lose their jobs as retaliation for speaking to reporters. Sparks told the LATH council that her nephew and his girlfriend are expected to show up to work in Ukiah at 7 a.m. without any transportation to get to their shifts in the neighboring county.
Questions arise regarding accountability, grant funding and the status of Lucerne administrative building
Deas referred all questions regarding the program to a company spokesperson who said nonprofit leadership would provide an official statement, but none has been provided as of press time. Additionally, Elijah House’s Director of Operations Justin Ammon failed to return calls and emails this week clarifying details of the Back 2 Work program’s ongoing operations out of Lake County.
According to the minutes of the LATH meeting on August 18, District 3 Supervisor Eddie (E.J.) Crandell, who was unable to assist this month’s meeting due to his attending an out of the area conference, was asked about accountability as to how grant funds were spent by the Elijah House. Crandell said, “Things are in motion in terms of checking on financials.” A straw poll was taken of the community members present at the August meeting, with 13 out of 21 people present giving an affirmative vote wishing for the council to censure the nonprofit.
In an announcement on their website updated Sept. 4, 2022, the nonprofit noted that all of the 32 shelter residents staying at the now closed Lakeport facility would be placed into alternate housing by September 4. The justification for the closing of the shelter was given earlier as a financial one with Ammon stating, in a letter dated July 11, 2022 and sent to county partners and the Lake County Board of Supervisors, that the average operating cost for the Emergency COVID Shelter was between $65,000 and $70,000 per month.
The Back 2 Work crew members who spoke with The Record-Bee made claims that the only residents allowed to stay at the Lakeport shelter over the past couple of weeks prior to the closure were working for the program but most were displaced on August 18. “They didn’t throw us out, but they heavily implied that they didn’t want us back in the building,” said one of the crew members who said he found himself without a place to stay after the shelter’s early shut down.
The nonprofit’s website states that the Elijah House Foundation provides the following services in Lake County: Housing navigation, case management, employment development through the Back 2 Work Program, general counseling, and placement into Sober Living Housing at their Lucerne location, although numerous questions about the presence, funding and oversight of the program in Lucerne remain unanswered.
BCOE: ‘We have nothing to do with Lake County’
When asked about the Lake County part of the program Keith Lane, senior director for the program at BCOE, said there is no official program in Lake County, only in Mendocino County. Representatives from Caltrans responded similarly.
“We have nothing to do with Lake County, we don’t have a contract with Caltrans to perform work in Lake County,” said Lane, adding that the Elijah House Foundation was subcontracted by BCOE to run litter abatement crews in Mendocino County based out of Ukiah which is funded at up to $500,000 on an annual basis. Lane said recent news items coming out of Lake County in regards to the program were of interest to them and added that BCOE was doing research on their end to make sure everything is running smoothly, and everything is being administered correctly.
Although financial records for a nonprofit are not subject to public disclosure, the Elijah House Foundation reported losses in net income two out of four years since 2017. The organization reported a total revenue of $3.4 million in 2020 with 44 percent of total expenses listed as executive compensation and other salaries and wages. According to records, the data is extracted financial data provided by the IRS.
McKelvey said he spent part of the day Thursday prior to Thursday’s meeting pouring over documents related to Elijah House and was concerned to discover multiple delinquency notices reported by the Attorney General, and that the organization’s nonprofit status had been rejected in 2019. Additionally, Elijah House had last given evidence of their status to Lake County in 2018. “Who’s vetting them?” he asked, “Essentially the Elijah House lied to the county in print in 2020. We have a for profit corporation masquerading as a nonprofit,” he said, adding that in 2020 the status filing was once again rejected because an independent audit was requested by the state.
