Home is where the heat is
Housing Rights Committee calls audit a "witch hunt"

By Cassi Feldman

In a town where everybody knows everybody, political enemies are easy to make and hard to shake. That's a lesson the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco has learned all too well in its 23 years of fighting for the city's tenants. But never has it been as obvious as now.

On June 28, San Francisco Examiner columnist Frank Gallagher reported that the HRC had mishandled public funds and funneled private donations into a political campaign. It's a serious charge. The city controller quickly launched an audit of the nonprofit, and local and federal officials are now investigating.

Rebecca Logue-Bovée, the group's executive director, admits she accidentally put a $250 check from ethics commissioner Paul Melbostad into an account for Proposition H, a November 2000 ballot initiative aimed at shifting the cost of capital improvements to landlords. She says it was a bookkeeping mistake that won't happen again.

But it may not be that simple. If the HRC is found guilty, thousands of tenants that rely on the group for eviction counseling each year could be in jeopardy. And even if the group is cleared of wrongdoing, the allegations raise an important question: Just how far should nonprofits go when it comes to defending their clients?

"The advocacy work is a direct result of the one-on-one counseling we do," Logue-Bovée said. "One feeds off the other and is born of the work that we do." At the same time, she said, there is – and should be – a wall between the two.

Since the HRC is run by the nonprofit Tides Center, it cannot legally advocate for a specific political candidate. It can, however, push for legislation as long as it doesn't spend more than a small percentage of its annual budget on lobbying.

"Just because the city's partially funding them doesn't mean they could never hold any political events," said Carmen LeFranc, audit manager for the City Controller's Office.

That's a far cry from Gallagher's take: "It is illegal for a nonprofit association like the HRC to participate in political activity," he wrote in a July 10 column, repeating the statement in another column two days later.

Robert Haaland, an HRC staffer, believes it's no coincidence that Gallagher's investigation started just as the HRC was gearing up to fight Sup. Tony Hall's Home Ownership Program for Everyone, a landlord-backed initiative slated for the November ballot.

Between stints as a journalist, Gallagher was employed by Solem and Associates, a public relations firm that has, at times, represented the city's landlords and developers. Gallagher declined to comment for this story.

Logue-Bovée and Haaland say they hope the audit ends quickly so they can get back to work. "It's a frightening witch hunt," Logue-Bovée said. "We operate totally aboveboard. The impropriety is only in their minds."

E-mail Cassi Feldman at cassi@sfbg.com.