Austin Street Center Shelter Ministries of Dallas Corrupt practices at Austin Street Center, a homeless shelter in Dallas TX Dallas, Texas

The Board of Trustees of Shelter Ministries of Dallas, the parent organization for Austin Street Center paid the Rev. Beulah Bubba Dailey, an Episcopalian priest, a sum of $500,000 one third of the shelters annual operating budget plus other benefits in addition to her retirement plan. Payment of that money was stipulated by terms of a nondisclosure agreement that both parties signed.

However, even though the Board of Trustees had been informed that Rev. Dailey had violated the terms by openly talking to people about content and terms of the nondisclosure agreement as well as complaining that half a million dollars were not enough for her years of service to the homeless, payment was made according to the schedule laid out within the contract.

According to current IRS regulations, any payment by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to a disqualified person in which the nonprofit organization gets back from the disqualified person less in value than it paid the disqualified person, would be an excess business transaction.

Breaking the terms of a written contract surely qualifies as not receiving equal value in this transaction. It is outrageous that so much money is paid to a person who together with her husband and daughter pulled an excess of $250,000 annually in salary and benefits from the homeless. Every penny that is raised by Austin Street Center is solicited from the community with the promise the money will be used to provide for the needy.

During her employment with Austin Street Center the Rev. Dailey also received more than $1000 in housing assistance per month from the organization in addition to her annual six figure salary. Austin Street Center has never assisted any client, homeless or needing help with rent to prevent homelessness, with rental assistance, never!

The new Director of Client Services, Amy Trail, upon her arrival at Austin Street Center granted an organization access to the clients in exchange for a $20,000 personal gain. The Board of Trustees was made aware of this obvious conflict of interest and yet has done nothing. One must wonder who profits from sending homeless people to a bank for a loan, as Austin Street Center recently announced it does. Matter of fact, three days after pointing out this conflict of interest to the new Executive Director I was let go for no reason at all.

Gift cards that were solicited for the clients at Christmas time, ended up in the office of the new Executive Director, Keith Price, to be used at his discretion. He handed some out to vendors, contractors, used some for supplies no receipt required to be returned to him with the remaining amount freely allowed to be kept by the employee who used the card (here is a $50 card go buy a pen and keep the rest?), handed out some cards as incentives to employees and his personal favorites, and mumbled something about giving his children gift cards when they would come to the shelter to visit. Not one of the cards made it to the person it was intended for, not one. Keith Price removed the cards from their envelopes, checked the amount that in most cases was written on the card or the envelope and put all cards into his desk drawer. Then he bought $5 cards, added a few of the larger amount cards that had been donated, the once that were for restaurants and food put them in a basket and let the clients pull one card each. The gift cards were never inventoried, there is no total amount available, a clear violation of IRS regulation and a blatant betrayal of donors trust. The Board of Trustees has been made aware of this incident but no action has been taken.