Corruption at the top of a political party gets the lion's share of attention. If you don't believe me, ask the lion of Harlem, Charlie Rangel. Corruption at the bottom often goes undetected, but it is far more pervasive, far more debilitating institutionally, and usually has much worse consequences for a lot more ordinary people.
The recent scandal involving ACORN was an unusual case in so far as a culture of corruption was exposed in a way that made for a flamboyant story. But now comes a story of a much more concrete and bitter kind of corruption, and I am guessing, one that will get a lot less attention.
The Washington Post runs Debbie Cenziper's "Staggering Need, Striking Neglect" in its Sunday edition. It is an appalling read.
In a city ravaged by the highest rate of AIDS cases in the nation, the D.C. Health Department paid millions to nonprofit groups that delivered substandard services or failed to account for any work at all, even as sick people searched for care or died waiting.
More than $1 million in AIDS money went to a housing group whose ailing boarders sometimes struggled without electricity, gas or food. A supervisor said she was ordered to create records for ghost employees.
About $400,000 was paid to a nonprofit organization, launched by a man who once ran one of the District's largest cocaine rings, for a promised job-training center that has never opened.
More than $500,000 was earmarked for a housing program whose executive director had a string of convictions for theft, drugs and forgery. After the D.C. Inspector General's Office could find no evidence that he was operating an AIDS nonprofit group, the city terminated the grant but never sought repayment.
All told, the Health Department's HIV/AIDS Administration awarded more than $25 million from 2004 to 2008 to nonprofit agencies marked by questionable spending, a lack of clients, or lapses in record-keeping and care, a 10-month Washington Post investigation found. Many of the groups have since closed or are no longer providing AIDS services.
That's just the first five paragraphs in a rather long article. But it presents a pretty good summary of what follows. Allow me to boil it down a little more: $25 million was went to organizations that were essentially fraudulent, and provided little if any benefits to the sick and needy. Meanwhile, honest and legitimate organizations have had to cut back services for lack of funding. What does that mean in human terms?
Renee Paige, 50, once threw birthday parties for her two daughters in her apartment in Southeast Washington, where she'd cook beef stew for elderly neighbors and always had bus fare for a friend. But AIDS and two bouts of pneumonia had left her weak, homeless and unable to care for herself.
She came to a community meeting in April after spending the night on a park bench in heavy rain, with no place to go. "I have AIDS," she told the group, "and I am soaking wet."
Weeks later, she died alone, on the bench, one mile from the HIV/AIDS Administration and within two miles of a dozen nonprofit groups that help people with AIDS.
That's what corruption means. It means Renee Paige died on a bench, a mile from the Office that was supposed to help her.
Cenziper lays out, in disgusting detail, the dysfunctional history of the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration. A few things stand out. One is that an awful lot of the people who ran the Administration itself and the numerous "nonprofit agencies" had no obvious qualifications other than a history of criminality. Consider the case of Debra Rowe, the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration Housing chief.
Rowe had rebuilt her life after a troubled past, like others in the city's network of AIDS workers. In 1991, when Rowe was 31, she was convicted of heroin possession and cocaine distribution, serving 15 months in prison. Months after her release, Rowe's husband, who had been convicted in a separate case of felony drug distribution, was shot and killed on U Street NW, records show.
Rowe later received a master's degree from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and joined the HIV/AIDS Administration in 1999. In 2004, she was promoted to run the $10 million-a-year AIDS housing program, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Rowe enjoyed what the Left calls "authenticity": heroin, prison, and a master's degree. That, and five years on the job, qualified her to run a $10 million-a-year program. She ran it into the ground.
Like most cities, D.C. is monolithically Democratic. There is no Republican Party to complain about misspent millions. So it is left to the press. The WaPo did its job. But how many more such stories are waiting for the New York Times and other national newspapers?
I just moved out here to Rapid City from a rural VA county 60mi SSE of DC. Needless to say, local news back there was always about how screwed up things were (are) in DC/Northern VA/Maryland Suburbs. What can you say about a community that STILL elects that moron Marion Barry to its city council, or that has the highest per capita education budget in the country, but still fails to give students a proper education? And of course DC has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in the country. As you so accurately point out, the area is "monolithically" democratic. In this case the WaPo did do its job, all right, but make no mistake about this: it's still a left-of-center paper. (Example: the Post missed the Van Jones story until he resigned, thank God. Typical of MSM.) It's better than that travesty, The New York Times, but any quick glimpse of Post editorials will quickly remind the reader of its politics. South Dakota looks better and better to me every day.
Posted by: dhmosquito | Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 12:21 PM
We'd be happy to have you, dh.
Posted by: KB | Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 02:14 PM
"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" or something on that
order. We have seen this in most of the larger cities in this country. Washington D.C. and Chicago are two examples. Having had one party in power for longer than memory, has led to a political power elite that can reward its friends, punish its
enemies and fix most elections. Political largess is handed out to those who will keep the people on top in power (if this sounds like the Obama administration there is a reason). Progress only occurs when the people finally become aroused enough to throw the rascals out by demanding both change and honest elections. One only needs to look at New York City pre and post Rudy Guliani
Posted by: George Mason | Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 03:21 PM
I knew the House of Represetatives was going to fight hard for the Public Option…I just knew it and had stated it previously on your blogsite! The overwhelming majority in the latest polls want the Public Option and this boosts support for the House in passing it along with the Senate.
Posted by: Macgregor | Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 06:05 PM