Welfare Agencies Finances

An Asian refugee agency has been put on probation because an audit by its major funder has found that it mismanaged its funds and billed taxpayers for services it never provided. The auditors also described programs managed by the as "disorganized and non-functional," noting that its employees spent large amounts of time aimlessly driving mentally disabled patients around the county so that it could bill taxpayers for transportation costs.

The Board of Supervisors this week directed county officials to identify preventive health-care and social-services programs that might receive more money in next fiscal year's budget. Board Chairman William G. Steiner proposed the action, saying the county needs to refocus priorities on programs that prevent larger social ills and "get the greatest return on our expenditures."

The dental crowns are made of cheap acrylic at the clinic run by AIDS Project Los Angeles. Porcelain is now far too expensive. APLA's food bank now turns away new clients who earn more than $700 a month. The cutoff used to be $840. Thirty-five staff members have been laid off, and the remaining 102 are organizing a union.

Benefit payments and services to Los Angeles County's poorest residents--who make up about 20% of the population--will have to be slashed if supervisors stick to their budget proposal for the Department of Public Social Services, its director said Thursday. Director Eddy Tanaka said the proposed $113-million cut in the agency's budget will be devastating.

More than half of Los Angeles shelters face critical shortages of money, a new study of the shelter system for the homeless in Los Angeles County has found. So far, the shelters have managed to keep their doors open and even double their service to nearly 5,000 beds in the last 2 1/2 years, according to the study by the Shelter Partnership Inc., an organization that assists in developing and maintaining emergency shelters.

Ventura County's only year-round homeless shelter lost a legal battle Thursday to recoup the loss of government grants, and now faces eviction from its Oxnard property because it has fallen $94,500 behind in rent. An eviction could put 60 shelter residents--including 39 children--at Oxnard's Zoe Christian Center back on the street as early as Saturday morning, said Fred Judy, the center's founder and president.

Persistent money troubles are forcing the tiny City of Angels Hospice in Hollywood to close early next month, although directors of the 4-year-old agency say they hope to reopen after regaining their financial footing. "We need to kind of regroup," said Joyce Green, the new executive director of the six-bed hospice. The hospice's board of directors voted last week to suspend operations after months of financial difficulties exacerbated by the recession.

A year after the Orange County chapter of the American Red Cross issued a plea for $1 million in donations, officials from the nonprofit disaster preparedness agency said Friday that funding is running far short. Businesses and residents donated $380,579 during the Red Cross' yearlong Partners in Community Preparedness fund-raising campaign, said Bruce Englebrecht, a Newport Beach attorney and member of the agency's board of directors.

When the Assn. to Aid Victims of Domestic Violence celebrates its 10th anniversary today, it does so amid a more than five-fold increase in reports of battered spouses over the last three years and a one-third decrease in funding since last year.

Pacific Lodge Foster Family Agency has received a $25,000 grant from Kaiser Permanente that the agency will use for its recently established foster family placement service. The Woodland Hills-based nonprofit service placed its first child in June, said David Genders, head of Pacific Lodge Youth Services, which founded and oversees the new agency.