The Recital of the Pieties Causes the Cashing of the Checks

I wrote a longish story for the Federalist on Tuesday about a provider of social services in Los Angeles getting contracts for public funds by faking corporate letters of support, and that story shows pretty clearly that no one was minding the store: Questionable applications for public funding were full of red flags that weren’t caught. Lie lie lie / get paid.

But there was something else lurking in those applications, beyond the red flags, and it’s something I’ve been talking about here for years.

A provider of services to the homeless got $23 million in funding for promises of housing and support that prosecutors now allege were not all delivered, with a large (and contested) sum of money being allegedly diverted to theft.

The applications the provider sent to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority were performances. See #12 in the list above. They were call and response, a ritual in which a slogan was offered to see if it produced the correct match in the pair: If you ever meet your secret twin, she will wear a necklace that mirrors the half you now wear around your own neck, and TOGETHER YOUR NECKLACES WILL FORM A SINGLE HEART. The applications were an identity test: Are you one of us? Which team do you play for? Do our edges align?

Here’s a request for information that jumps between pages, but I want to show it as it appears in the record rather than just cutting and pasting the plain text:

Describe your plan to ensure that staff operates with a high level of cultural humility, and if we like your answer you can have millions of taxpayer dollars.

The back half of the call-and-response ritual goes on for several pages, but here’s a sample:

Cut and paste, with an emphasis on paste. It’s I-studied-sociology-at-Oberlin boilerplate, something something LGBTQQIA something something. What it means: Don’t worry, our secret necklaces align.

Cultural humility comes up a lot. It’s Question #2 and Question #8.

Another one that jumps between pages:

Please assure us that the building will be full of transgender ex-cons. The long answer rejects “homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and shelter segregation based on perceived gender identity,” in the middle of a bunch of other boilerplate.

And so on.

These are the applications that led to the aggressive funding of a provider who is now awaiting trial. There were some questions about finances and operations, also answered with boilerplate stuff about being sure to have very good processes, but the heart of the applications was cultural humility and LQBTQQIA everything. Nothing else was being evaluated. The agency and the provider asking for the agency’s money were vibing at each other.

For a hint of the scale of the cash-spew involved in social services for the homeless in Los Angeles County, look at a single record from a different agency: “the latest list of ICMS providers.” (An ICMS provider provides intensive case management services to the homeless.) Really, click on the link. Scroll to the bottom. See the count at the end.

Will you serve the transgendered BIPOC justice-involved community with cultural humility? Or do you not want to get this fat stack of cash?

A shock to find that this system of evaluation led to an indictment.