Elected Officials Must Ask the Michigan AG to Launch an Investigation into SafeHouse

Local and county elected officials must ask Michigan AG Dana Nessel to investigate SafeHouse Center, its Executive Director and its Board of Directors. Here’s why: purported public fraud by the non-profit.

On September 22, the SafeHouse Center Board issued a public letter the beginning of which publicly declared the group’s absolute confidence in Executive Director Niess-May before the findings of any independent investigation into their nonprofit were ever announced. A dozen local women elected officials (county, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti) signed a public letter addressed to the SafeHouse Center Board of Directors. In the letter, the elected officials called for an independent investigation into the allegations of shelter resident mistreatment and facility mismanagement reported by The Ann Arbor Independent. In their letter, the elected officials also called on the members of the SafeHouse Center Board to place the shelter’s Executive Director, Barbara Niess-May, on administrative leave while any independent investigation is conducted.

These elected officials must understand that the SafeHouse scandal is about the potential misuse of public funds, and about a fraud perpetrated on the public, a fraud which continues, unabated.

In its Sept. 22 public letter, the SafeHouse Board stated it intends to investigate the Executive Director. How convenient. SafeHouse Center Board President Tara Mahoney, an attorney, said in response to written questions posed by the Ann Arbor Independent on Aug. 4, 2021, she felt “oversight of SafeHouse by the Board was exemplary.” Given Mahoney’s self-serving assertion, and the out-of-touch and sycophantic content of the SafeHouse Board’s September 22 public statement, those individuals can’t be trusted to oversee any credible investigation. In fact, there must be an investigation into the Board’s own part in the purported fraud that has been uncovered.

In August 2021, the public and elected officials were made aware that SafeHouse Center has turned away a number of victims who’ve asked for shelter. SafeHouse officials claim, untruthfully according to elected officials, that the facility is “full.” This is fraud: SafeHouse continues to use public money to operate a shelter with 20 rooms. In addition, SafeHouse’s staff and Board members continue to solicit donations and public funds for shelter upkeep not done, as well as victim care, support and services not provided. The first-person accounts of evicted survivors, SafeHouse residents, staff, interns, video and photographic evidence that prompted the elected officials to make their Sept. 24 public statement, suggest that SafeHouse’s Executive Director and her Board have, perhaps for some time, been defrauding the public.

The public deserves to know how Niess-May spent public money given SafeHouse to implement enhanced cleaning protocols for COVID-19. Photographs taken between February and August 2021 of the facility’s bedrooms, bathrooms and air ducts, for example, show evidence of no enhanced cleaning. Likewise, annually, Washtenaw County handed over taxpayer money to Niess-May for upkeep of the county-owned building. Photographs taken between February and August 2021 of the facility’s bedrooms and bathrooms and kitchen, for example, show evidence of massive deferred upkeep, as well as unsafe and unsanitary conditions. In August and September 2021, multiple SafeHouse Center residents were made homeless by SafeHouse staff. Taxpayers pay for services to be delivered by SafeHouse staff, and included among those services is helping victims find stable housing.

The SafeHouse Center Board of Directors, Washtenaw County Administrator, the public and elected officials were made aware at the beginning of September that SafeHouse Center’s Executive Director, with 20 rooms at her disposal, has been turning away victims with the claim that the shelter is “full.” Elected officials admit to knowing that the shelter is not full. Rather, SafeHouse Center’s low pay, mismanagement and an atmosphere which staff, interns and residents purport is poisoned by systemic racism, bullying and toxicity, have resulted in debilitating staff turnover. Barbara Niess-May, who continues to collect her $130,000 salary, can’t recruit and keep staff necessary to provide the robust client-facing advocate services taxpayers have been led to believe SafeHouse Center provides. One survivor and her eight children were evicted on short notice from SafeHouse Center, because her advocate was fired.

Public records show that over the past decade, Washtenaw County taxpayers, through the County Administrator, county, township and various city governments, have funneled more than $15 million to SafeHouse, including providing the shelter a county-owned building and funding to maintain it. SafeHouse’s Executive Director and Board members have repeatedly led the public and donors to believe that their tax dollars fund a well-maintained, adequately-staffed, secure shelter. First-person accounts of survivors, photos and videos show the opposite to be true. The return on that taxpayer investment over the past decade has been salary and benefits of more than $1.3 million for Barbara Niess-May. Survivors and their children housed at SafeHouse, meanwhile, took photos and videos of empty food cupboards and refrigerators, moldy, rotting bathroom floors and showers, filthy air vents, walls and ceilings with holes, stained carpet and mattresses with huge rips and tears in them.

County and local elected officials may believe their power to clean up SafeHouse is stymied by an Executive Director who gaslights, and a non-profit’s Board that is clearly controlled by defensive, out-of-touch sycophants; it is not. The Michigan Attorney General enthusiastically investigates non-profit fraud. 517-335-7622, miag@michigan.gov.