Many of us who live in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other California cities encounter homeless people on a daily basis. If you have a heart, it breaks a little every time you see someone struggling with addiction and mental health issues in broad daylight. They seem so alone, so abandoned and so forgotten.
You also probably have felt frustrated that with billions of taxpayer dollars sloshing around in a social services network that promised to reduce the problem, it only seems to get worse.
In Los Angeles alone, the number of homeless people has risen more than 58% since 2016, city data show.
Why hasn’t the spending on homelessness brought about better results? Where is all of that money going?
My colleague Audrey McGlinchy recently shared a glimpse into one program that might make you spit your coffee.
She was digging through the financial disclosures that nonprofits have to provide to the Internal Revenue Service when she came upon filings for an organization called the 1736 Family Crisis Center. It runs domestic violence shelters and programs to help the homeless.
Here’s the astonishing discovery: It paid its chief executive officer, Carol Adelkoff, $1.6 million over the two most recent years for which filings were available.
Reached by phone, Adelkoff was quick to assure McGlinchy that the money wasn’t all salary — about half of it was pay for unused vacation time she had accrued during four decades at the nonprofit.
Unused vacation pay with no cap
So, more than $800,000 in unused vacation pay? Would your employer allow that? Almost certainly not.
Under California law, employers can’t deny you pay for unused vacation, but they can put reasonable caps on the amount you can accrue — usually 1½ times the vacation hours allowed in a single year.
“It’s actually extremely rare for a nonprofit, and frankly any company, not to cap vacation accrual,” McGlinchy told me.
Adelkoff argued she had done the organization a favor by accepting the money — in two lump sums, each roughly matching her $400,000 salary — and clearing that huge liability off the books.
“My question was, well, if we’re talking about the financial health of your organization, why was it permitted for this vacation to accrue in the first place?” McGlinchy said.
She didn’t get an answer.
Many questions left unanswered
When she asked repeatedly to see the board minutes from the meetings in which the enormous payout was approved, along with a copy of the organization’s vacation policy, the nonprofit refused.
Even though the crisis center gets more than 90% of its revenue from taxpayers — including payments from the federal government and the cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach — technically it’s not a public agency, so it’s not legally required to make such documents public.
Of course, there’s no law preventing a nonprofit from choosing to share its internal documents. The 1736 Family Crisis Center apparently decided it would be wiser to keep them private.
The center’s lawyer wrote to McGlinchy that it was hard for Adelkoff to find time for vacations because of the breadth of her responsibilities, which include, among many other things, attending “fundraisers, community functions, and 24-hour oversight of residential and other service locations.”
Her home office across the Pacific
Which brought McGlinchy to the next question. Public records indicate Adelkoff sold her house in Palos Verdes Estates and moved to Hawaii decades ago; her primary residence has been listed on the Big Island for more than 10 years. Could that be true? How do you oversee Los Angeles shelters from the middle of the Pacific Ocean?
Over the phone, Adelkoff declined to say where she lived. She said that since she works for an organization that helps people escape abusers, she could become a target, so she had to keep her location secret as a matter of security.
Uh-huh. Aloha, Carol.
Top stories
Romina Bergman, 2, reaches out to chimpanzee Yoshi and her newborn, center, alongside Saya Radin, 1, at the Los Angeles Zoo.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
You soon could be paying more to visit the L.A. Zoo
- For the second year in a row, officials are moving to raise ticket prices for the Los Angeles Zoo.
- The price hike, if passed by the full City Council, would raise general admissions prices to $29 for adults, $24 for children and $26 for seniors.
LAUSD’s first day of school
- As 390,000 LAUSD students head back to class, the nation’s second-largest district faces thousands of job cuts needed to prevent a projected $3.6-billion deficit.
- Environmental concerns in Boyle Heights, shrinking enrollment and immigration anxieties deepen the uncertainty, even as test scores rise and key programs stay intact this year.
California battles Trump plan to limit coastal oversight
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Commentary and opinion
Editor’s pick
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Things to do
Today’s recipe
Gambas al Ajillo prepared by chef Aitor Zabala at Somni restaurant.
(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)
Former cooking editor Genevieve Ko uses sherry to round out the flavors of this classic Spanish dish. Here’s Ko’s recipe for Gambas al Ajillo, which is spicy, garlicky and full of shrimp.
Question for you
With Hollywood Burbank Airport’s new $1.3-billion terminal, and LAX’s long-awaited people mover trains hopefully coming soon, there’s a lot to look forward to at SoCal airports. Which is your favorite? Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.
Photo of the day
Farmworkers adjust sprinkler coverage south of Bakersfield.
(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)
Games
Here’s today’s mini crossword, plus our other free, daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Jack Dolan, investigative reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Shi Bradley, audience intern
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.
