Independent Investigation Confirms Allegations of SafeHouse Mismanagement: Executive Director Barbara Niess-May Resigns

Updated 1/24/22 with comments from Nicole Beverly.

by P.D. Lesko

On January 18, 2022, after the results of an independent investigation into allegations of mismanagement were delivered to the SafeHouse Board of Directors, long-time SafeHouse Center Executive Director Barbara Niess-May resigned. On Saturday January 22, the Board released a public statement about the months-long investigation into the allegations first published by The Ann Arbor Independent. In their statement the Board members wrote, “After discussing the outcomes of the investigation with Barbara Niess-May, she decided to resign as Executive Director and will leave the organization.” The investigator’s Findings letter, prepared at the request of the SafeHouse Board, states, “The preponderance of the evidence supports the findings there have been lapses of SafeHouse Center management in the areas of human resources, communications, and safety.” The lapses, the letter goes on to state, “predated the pandemic.”

Nicole Beverly is the President of The ENOUGH Initiative, a non-profit that educates teens about domestic violence. When asked if she thought Niess-May’s resignation will resolve the issues at SafeHouse, Beverly said: “Based on the many conversations that I have had over the past few months with former employees of SafeHouse and victims that have been sheltered there, I believe that it is going to take a very experienced leader to turn around the toxic culture that currently exists in the organization….It will also take a leader that is willing to continue to ‘clean the house.'”

The investigation did not look into, and the investigator’s Findings letter did not comment on, what multiple critics call a “stunning” lack of oversight on the part of the members of the SafeHouse Board. Their responsibilities included supervision of Niess-May’s work. Instead, the investigation and report focused solely on Niess-May and assigned complete responsibility for the many serious “lapses” to one person, her.

Nicole Beverly has worked for months to provide housing and services to the victims made homeless and refused shelter and services by SafeHouse Center between August 2021 and the present. She believes the members of the SafeHouse Board need to “step down from the board and allow space for individuals who truly understand the dynamics of domestic violence and want to have an active role in the organization to create change. Beverly added, “I believe that all of the Board members need to take a long hard look at themselves and ask themselves how they contributed to what was supposed to be a place of safe shelter for victims turning into an organization that requires $330,000 of repairs due to the level of disrepair that the building reached.”

In July 2021, The Ann Arbor Independent published an article, complete with photos, that alleged Barbara Niess-May, the Executive Director of SafeHouse Center, was mismanaging the unsafe, unsanitary facility and putting women and children in danger. The newspaper published a follow up article in August 2021 in which named victims of sexual and domestic violence alleged that the County’s shelter was unsafe and unsanitary. They provided first-person accounts, photos and videos to corroborate the allegations.

The investigator’s Findings letter states, “In July, August and September 2021, actions taken by SafeHouse management further contributed to staff and shelter resident distrust in leadership, and perceptions of racism and retaliation…The breakdown in communications further supports the findings of fact that some staff and shelter residents reasonably interpreted certain decisions and actions as retaliatory towards those expressing concerns.” The investigator did not find evidence of systemic racism, as both SafeHouse staff and survivors had alleged.

In September 2021, Barbara Niess-May released a public statement in which she claimed all of the allegations published in The Ann Arbor Independent were untrue and “misinformation.” On September 24, Niess-May sent her public statement containing multiple falsehoods to two officials at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS). In her email, Niess-May assures the two state officials that all of the allegations published by The Ann Arbor Independent “are false.”

On October 6, the SafeHouse Center Board of Directors put the shelter’s Executive Director Barbara Niess-May on paid leave and hired an independent investigator, lawyer Kathryn M. Hartrick, to look into the many allegations published by The Ann Arbor Independent.

Of Niess-May’s departure, Ann Arbor Council member Katherine Griswold (D-Ward 4) said, “I’m glad a decision has been made and we can move forward now.”

Griswold published an open letter to Niess-May in September 2021 in which she wrote, “We can all agree that survivors, just as all vulnerable community members, are in greater need as the pandemic has created additional challenges. Therefore, I am recommending that we focus on a plan to restore the vital services of SafeHouse within the next ten days. This includes identifying what success looks like. For example, a 90 percent occupancy rate and a 90 percent satisfaction rate on the exit surveys of our clients.”

It was after Griswold’s open letter that a dozen local elected officials (women) published another open letter. This one was addressed to the SafeHouse Board of Directors who, on September 22, 2021, released a public statement in which they expressed their unreserved support for the non-profit’s embattled Executive Director. In the same statement, Board members announced an “independent investigation” into allegations of mismanagement, unsafe and unsanitary conditions made by domestic violence and sexual assault survivors in The Ann Arbor Independent. 

Between October 6, 2021 when she was put on leave, and January 18, 2022, Barbara Niess-May collected her full salary, which the non-profit’s IRS tax returns show to be approximately $10,000 per month.

The Board’s January 22, 2022 statement included what some see as more outlandish, out-of-touch praise of Niess-May: “This has been difficult for us, as several of our Directors have worked with Barbara for many years and all of us will always appreciate her nearly 20 years of service to our community, moving this mission forward in significant ways to help thousands of survivors.”

• Between August 2021 and January 2022, as a direct result of the actions and mismanagement of Barbara Niess-May, an unknown number of domestic violence victims have been refused shelter and services.
• Numerous victims and domestic violence advocates told The A2Indy that SafeHouse staff, in refusing the victims’ shelter, have repeatedly claimed the 52-bed shelter was full. Data posted to the SafeHouse website show that at no time between October 2021 and January 2022 did SafeHouse shelter more than 11 individuals.
• In August and September 2021, Niess-May’s retaliation against victims who spoke to the newspaper resulted in at least half a dozen victims being made homeless. As a result, Washtenaw County allocated $75,000 to shelter and provide services to the women whom Niess-May had forced out of SafeHouse Center.
• While the decision to evict the victims was Niess-May’s, the actual “exiting” was carried out by current Interim Executive Director Kim Montgomery. In an audio recording shared with The Ann Arbor Independent by a sexual assault survivor Montgomery can be heard giving a sexual assault victim 20 minutes to pack and leave the shelter, the day after the victim spoke to the newspaper.

According to public records obtained by The A2Indy, in September 2021, Niess-May wrote Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) officials to say that due to staffing shortages, the shelter would have to limit the number of individuals it could house and to whom services could be provided. In her email, Niess-May also told Michigan officials that the shelter census would be topped at 30 women and children. She went on to tell the MDHHS officials that, in the first week of September 2021, SafeHouse was providing shelter and services to 30 women and children. SafeHouse records show there were eight women housed at the end of August 2021.

According to service data posted on the SafeHouse Center webpage, between the time Niess-May was put on leave in October and the end of December 2021, the 52-bed shelter served fewer than 30 domestic and sexual violence victims, total.

• It has been under Montgomery’s management and leadership that a number of domestic and sexual assault victims have been refused shelter and services.
• Under Montgomery’s leadership, domestic violence advocates say victims refused shelter have been referred to The Delonis Center (closed due to an outbreak of COVID), Catholic Social Services (does not provide shelter) and the Salvation Army (does not provide a secure, safe space or domestic violence services).
• In November, while turning away victims at the door and over the phone, and sheltering a handful of those who needed safe haven, Montgomery provided a written “update” to the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners in which she claimed the shelter was operating normally.
• SafeHouse Center’s Interim Director Kim Montgomery posted an “update” to the non-profit’s webpage on November 2, 2021 in which she admitted the shelter, due to under-staffing, was turning away victims.

Despite clear evidence of ongoing and pervasive community gaslighting and mismanagement by Kim Montgomery, the SafeHouse Center Board’s statement heaped praise on the Interim Director’s performance: “We are pleased that Kim Montgomery will continue as Interim Executive Director as we begin our search for a new Executive Director. We appreciate Kim’s dedication to SafeHouse Center during this challenging time.”

SafeHouse Center continues to solicit public funds. Between August 2021 and January 2022, SafeHouse Center and its Board members solicited public money and donations for services that the shelter and its staff are not providing. It is fraud for a 501(c)3 non-profit to knowingly solicit and accept public money for services not delivered, according to officials in the office of the Michigan Attorney General. Members of the SafeHouse Center Board include Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry Clayton, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District Barbara McQuade and Washtenaw County Administrator Greg Dill.

The Ann Arbor Independent editorialized on October 17, 2021 that the County Commissioners ought to force County Administrator Greg Dill to resign or fire him: “Washtenaw County, because of Gregory Dill’s professional negligence and ineptitude as administrator, has no domestic violence shelter. Women and children who seek shelter at SafeHouse, are being turned away at the door and over the phone, a fact both Dill and the Washtenaw County Commissioners were made aware of weeks ago. Gregory Dill must resign as County Administrator. If he won’t resign, the Washtenaw County Commissioners must fire him.”

Just days prior to the release of the independent investigator’s report, and announcement of Niess-May’s resignation, County Administrator Dill, the Vice President of the SafeHouse Center Board of Directors, issued a public statement about his role in the SafeHouse Center scandal. In response, one local domestic violence advocate penned a scathing response in which she alleges Dill gaslights and lies about his involvement.

On January 18, the day the newspaper learned the SafeHouse Board had accepted Barbara Niess-May’s resignation, The Ann Arbor Independent asked Chair of the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners Susan E. Shink if she had any comment about the investigator’s report. Shink texted, “I do not have and have not seen a copy of the investigator’s report.”

On January 21, 2022 The Ann Arbor Independent filed suit against SafeHouse Center for allegedly violating the Michigan Freedom of Information and the Open Meetings Acts.