WHO BENEFITS AT AUSTIN STREET CENTER?

This is what $1,500,000 in private donations from the community

provides for the majority of homeless people at Austin Street Center

 

In January of 2012 Austin Street Center started payment of $500,000 plus continuation of selected benefits to its former executive director, the Rev. Bubba Dailey, with the first installment in the amount of $300,000. A nondisclosure agreement was signed between Bubba Dailey and Shelter Ministries of Dallas DBA Austin Street Center, stipulating Bubba Dailey could not disclose any of the content of the agreement and nothing about her experiences during the time she worked for the organization.

Bubba Dailey violated the terms of the nondisclosure agreement by showing it to employees and clients as well as soliciting legal help from visitors to the shelter. This Episcopalian priest complained that $500,000 was not nearly enough for all her years of service to the homeless. Being aware of this infraction the board of directors decided to go ahead and pay.

The money to pay Bubba Dailey is mandated by the board of directors from donations solicited with the promise to provide for the homeless.

During the 2011 holiday season the new executive director of Austin Street Center, Keith Price, solicited and collected gift cards on behalf of the homeless. He bought $5 gift cards and handed those out, keeping the once with higher amounts brought in by donors in his office to be used at his discretion, including handing those gift cards to employees and contractors. He was also considering giving some cards to his children as incentives whenever they would come by the shelter to “help”.

Although the board of directors was made aware of this unethical practice, no corrective measures have been implemented. The remaining gift cards are still held by Keith Price. It is an interesting fact that the IRS requires these cards to be reported but no inventory has ever been conducted, no exact amount is or will be available, a clear infraction of the law. If an amount is reported it will be guesswork.

It is a fact that the new director of client services, Amy Trail, secured a $20,000 personal gain by allowing a service organization access to the homeless clients at Austin Street Center. Since this is clearly a conflict of interest, the justification that the clients will benefit from the services offered through this organization is not a valid one. Even though the board of directors was made aware of this situation, nothing was done to correct it.

During the 2011 Christmas season a gentleman who had worked himself up, had moved into his own apartment and was and still is employed by Austin Street Center received a $500 dollar personal gift from a volunteer in appreciation for his dedication working with the homeless. Of course this employee reported the gift to Keith Price. Keith Price, aware of how little he paid this man in salary and how much he paid Amy Trail, had the former homeless gentleman sign the check over to Austin Street Center, had him designate the check for gift card purchases only and used it to buy the $5 gift cards mentioned earlier. The board of directors was made aware of this and as yet no action has been taken. It seems acceptable to the board members to take money from former homeless people but not from outside employees.

The director of client services, Amy Trail, on the first day of school (2012) came in around 9 am and found out that all 4 women with children staying at the shelter during that time didn’t have their children ready when the school bus came to pick them up.

The director of client services then had these four women, their children and their belongings loaded into the shelter van, a van that had been donated to the shelter to transport clients to and from work, doctors appointment and other constructive activities, and had them dumped in front of another shelter, thrown out on the street despite one of the desk supervisors at Austin Street Center confirming via a phone call that the other shelter had no room for four women and their children. The driver was instructed by the director of client services “just leave them there and come back”.

Now here is where I am confused. If I were the director of client services and I made it my business (the shelter is legally not responsible for children, legal rights and duties remain with the parent/guardian. However, the shelter is obligated to report child abuse/neglect to CPS) to make sure the children get to school, would I not inform the mothers when the children needed to be ready for the bus? Would I not be at the shelter at 7 am on the first day of school to make sure the moms had all the support they needed? And would I not call CPS if I thought the moms were neglecting their duty? No one can convince me that four women conspired not to have their children ready that day!

How were the children being helped, did the action of the director of services make a difference. There is no information available where the children ended up, maybe back with their abusive father. Austin Street Center failed to benefit these children, and yet Austin Street Center uses your donations to pay the director of client services.

It is a well known fact among the homeless that the former director of women’s services, Carisa Austin, Bubba’s daughter dated homeless clients she met at the shelter while employed at Austin Street Center. In one particular case, Bubba Dailey employed the boyfriend and use donor money to pay him a salary higher than what other homeless employees would be paid. Everybody, including Bubba and Harry knew he was stealing but only when Carisa grew tired and ended the relationship, the boyfriend would get “caught”stealing, be fired and thrown out of the shelter.

Bubba Dailey received around $1,000 in a monthly housing allowance from Austin Street Center. The sad fact is, that not one homeless person ever received cash assistance to help with housing from Austin Street Center, be it for a security deposit or occasional emergency help with rent. Austin Street Center uses donations to pay the executive who can refuse services to the homeless on a whim. There are no written policies, everything is provided “at will”.

Matter of fact, when apartments would send in forms to verify rental history, Bubba Dailey would write in big letters across the form “THIS IS A HOMELESS SHELTER, EVERYTHING IS FREE”. The fact is, this did not help any homeless person secure a rental agreement.

It is a fact that Austin Street Center deliberately inflates the number of people it claims to serve, with fraudulent numbers as high as 400 or even 450 homeless a day and has done so for many years. Austin Street Center also reports false numbers in its grant proposals, inflating numbers to bring the cost per person served down, and to secure more money from the community. The claims of graduating 10, 15 or even 20 people a month from their programs are outrageous and not true. The problem with nonprofits like Austin Street Center is that they are self-reporting and there is no way of verifying these claims.

It is undisputable that Bubba Dailey, her husband and her daughter received an excess of $250,000 in salaries and benefits from Austin Street Center each year, money solicited from the community to “help the needy”. 

 
Work-program participants are supposed to be taught job skills, learn how to write a resume and gain interview skills. In reality the work-program is a cheap labor force that displaces employees, which is against the law. Participants are being paid between $40 and $75 a week and are reported to the IRS the same way contractors are.

Austin Street Center does not inform participants of their potential tax obligations at the end of the year, and so homeless people are suddenly faced with owing taxes for the stipend they received. However, since the shelter controls when and how the program participants work, legally they should be classified as employees and the shelter would have to withhold income tax.

After Bubba and Harry had left, Carisa went on the warpath. She went to the doctors that provide free health care for homeless people and told them that a man working at the shelter had insurance and was using the free services and as such was committing insurance fraud. Of course none of this was true. In retaliation for not speaking out in a meeting with board members, Carisa had targeted this gentleman in a vicious and vindictive manner. The incident was written up and put in her personnel file, but nobody talked to her about it and no corrective measures were taken. No representative of Austin Street Center apologized to the gentleman for one of its employees to behave in such an unprofessional and liable manner. He was just happy that the medical provider paid no credence to Carisa Austin and continued his health care.