Error blamed for loss of funds for homeless

Thursday, Sept. 11, 2003 | 11:09 a.m.

A consultant hired by a committee that consisted of Las Vegas and Clark County staff members to work on a federal grant for the homeless apparently failed to check the granting agency's website for more than four months, resulting in the region asking for $1.1 million less than it could have in an annual application.

What's worse for the county's homeless, Shawna Parker Brody, a Clark County management analyst who worked on the grant application in previous years, told the Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition this week that she didn't think the mistake could be corrected, or the money recouped.

A letter sent by Parker Brody and Sabra Smith, her counterpart with Las Vegas, to coalition President Gus Ramos says consultant Deanna Ackerman of Nonprofit Research & Development Associates could have avoided the error.

"According to Ms. Ackerman," the letter says, "it appears that sometime between late February and mid-July, HUD readjusted the ... need amount for Southern Nevada, noting that the Southern Nevada Continuum of Care might be eligible for as much as $4.2 million." The adjustment was made because of population and need, the HUD website said.

The Southern Nevada application instead requested $3.1 million.

This was "not the first time somebody applying for a federal grant misses something -- it's just the nature of the process," Ramos said.

"But if the controls are there and people are watching, then this kind of thing would be caught," he said.

Linda Lera-Randle El, an area homeless advocate who, as past administrator of former MASH Village shelter, received the HUD funding, said the case points to a lack of oversight.

"To me the issue this case brings up is who oversees these consultants -- $1.1 million is a lot of money and there's got to be someone keeping track of these things," Lera-Randle El said.

HUD and Las Vegas would not comment until the federal agency announces the grant's results in December. Ackerman could not immediately be reached for comment.

The mix-up is the first of its kind in the seven years HUD has granted the money as it currently does, involving local governments and nonprofits in the application process, Parker Brody said. The Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition, a group of more than 40 public and private agencies, submits the so-called Continuum of Care grant to the Department of Housing and Urban Development every year. It is the largest pot of money available to the region for helping the homeless.

The $1.1 million could have been used by nonprofits that applied for the money to extend their work for longer periods, Parker Brody said. A new database to keep track of who is using what services and where could have been funded for three years instead of two. Sixty-seven housing units could have been provided to homeless veterans for three years instead of one. And another project to house families could have been supported for three years, not two.

Parker Brody said that the consultant must have been relying on last year's projected need for the region, but that this year's amount may have been raised because Census 2000 figures were considered for the first time.

HUD set the projected need for the region at $3.2 million for the last two years, and at $2.9 million the two years before that.

Parker Brody said that Ackerman must not have checked the website during the period indicated in the letter.

She said the error "might be considered negligence ... owing to the person not being experienced (with the grant) -- but not malfeasance."

In previous years the city and the county worked together with the coalition to submit the application. Parker Brody was on maternity leave this year and Ackerman was hired by Las Vegas, though her $37,600 in fees were paid for by Clark County.

Lera-Randle El said the mix-up should leave a lesson for next year's application.

"We can't afford to be sloppy because we're talking about every day without the funding we need in this community," she said.