Last
fall, a Cuomo administration agency signed off on a new shelter on
Wards Island to be operated by HELP Social Services, part of a nonprofit
founded decades ago by the governor and chaired by his sister, Maria
Cuomo Cole.
The
Office of Temporary & Disability Assistance had inspected the
facility several times before and after it opened on three floors in a
state psychiatric hospital. On Oct. 5, the agency certified that the
site on the island between Manhattan and Queens was fit to provide safe
lodging for single homeless men, records show.
Then cold weather arrived.
Inspections
by the Coalition for the Homeless found interior temperatures in two
dozen rooms on all three floors of the new shelter hit lows in the high
50s. Men slept with their jackets on. Extra blankets and space heaters
arrived, but the chill remained. At one point, some men were moved into
city-run shelters.
That
wasn’t the only problem for HELP on Wards Island. An investigation by
THE CITY discovered that as the state has approved an expansion of
HELP’s homeless shelters in the city, multiple woes have plagued the
nonprofit’s four Wards Island facilities.
THE
CITY’s examination, based on public records, interviews with clients
and accounts of inspections of the Wards Island HELP shelters by the
Coalition for the Homeless, found:
•
Raw sewage flooding a basement, black mold creeping along walls and
ceilings, and a summer blackout that stranded a man in an electric
wheelchair for hours in the dark. On Memorial Day, inspectors found
another man in a wheelchair locked in a bathroom – apparently by shelter
staff.
•
As of May 24, the three shelters in facilities within city Department
of Buildings jurisdiction had 71 building code violations — some dating
to 2017. The fourth shelter, Meyers, where the heat outage struck, is in
a state building and is not inspected by the city’s Buildings
Department. The city
Department of Homeless Services says most of the
violations have been addressed, though they’re still in the process of
certifying that the repairs are complete and have allocated $10 million
for upgrades.
•
HELP currently has 33 active contracts with the city dating back as
early as 2013 — 20 of which wound up costing more than their original
estimated amounts by as much as 80%. While the city contracted for
$371.8 million in services, HELP USA has so far been paid $419.5
million.
•
Since 2008, Cuomo Cole, her shoe-designer husband, Kenneth Cole, seven
other members of HELP’s board and several top employees have written
dozens of checks totaling $451,285 to Andrew Cuomo’s campaigns for
governor, a review of campaign finance records shows.
Stephen
Mott, a HELP spokesperson said, “We are now and have always been a
non-political organization. We have never endorsed any candidates for
public office, nor have we ever raised money for political purposes.”
Mott
added, “HELP USA has been working with the homeless for more than 30
years. We are deeply committed to this work and proud of our record of
service to the people of New York City.”
Gov.
Cuomo’s office declined to comment. During an interview with Cuomo
Thursday on WAMC, host Alan Chartock spoke generally about donors
expecting something in return. The governor scoffed at the notion of
pay-to-play.
“If
anybody ever walked up to me and said, ‘I contributed to your campaign
and I therefore want you to do me a favor,’ I would knock that person on
their rear-end in a nice, polite, legal way,” Cuomo said. “But look, I
think it’s simpler than that. If you can be bought off for a
contribution — I don’t care for $10 or $5,000 or $50,000 — you are
unethical or you are criminal.”
That would also make you a prostitute, Andrew.
Which is just as unethical as nepotism motivated patronage.
1 comment:
And you would expect?
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