By: Igor Shereshevsky
Children’s Community Services (CCS) has been placed in receivership in the wake of a raid that resulted from an alleged billing scheme.
Daniel Tietz, a one-time official of the Department of Social Services, has been tapped by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank to oversee CCS’s ongoing operations.
Part of those operations includes a $600 million contract to operate one of New York City’s biggest hotel/shelter operations.
New York City Department of Homeless Services spokesperson Isaac McGinn told the New York Post, “Today, as a result of our action and petition, the court appointed a temporary receiver for this provider effective immediately.”
McGinn said that the ruling by Justice Frank was “a win for families receiving services at these locations who don’t have to worry about being left high and dry because of the alleged improprieties of management.”
It has also become public that a pair of executives at CCS we’re fired soon after the Department of investigation’s much publicized raid. Their names are reportedly Thomas Bransky and Ruth Mandelbaum.
Children’s Community Services provides what it describes as a “holistic array of social services and community linkages to provide a supportive environment for the most vulnerable families in our community. In this way, we empower these families to be contributing members of society. Our sites are equipped with security, maintenance and a dedicated social service team, consisting of case managers, childcare personnel, housing specialists, and other direct-care staff.”
The alleged scam has been reportedly on extensively. Here’s how the New York Times described it: “One company was supposedly based in a vacant house in New Jersey. Another company had no office; its address was a post office box inside a shipping store in Nassau County. A third operated out of a Harlem apartment. The companies were all listed in paperwork as subcontractors for Children’s Community Services, a nonprofit that the city has paid about $500 million since 2017 to provide roughly 1,900 units for homeless people, including families with children. Authorities believe that the nonprofit defrauded New York City through a network of at least six subcontractors that did not appear to provide the supplies and services listed on invoices, according to a lawsuit the city filed against the nonprofit on Wednesday. The fraud could be millions of dollars, but the lawsuit was not specific.”
An estimated 11,750 New York City residents experiencing homelessness currently live in hotel rooms that the city funds due to the fact that its traditional shelter system is severely overloaded. Nearly 60,000 people, many of whom are families with children, sleep in DHS shelters each night, according to daily census reports.
