Why hasn\u2019t the spending on homelessness brought about better results? Where is all of that money going?<\/p>\n
You’re reading the Essential California newsletter <\/p>\n
Sign up to start every day with California’s most important stories.<\/p>\n
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service<\/a>, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy<\/a> such as personalizing your experience and ads. <\/p>\n My colleague Audrey McGlinchy recently shared a glimpse<\/a> into one program that might make you spit your coffee. <\/p>\n She was digging through the financial disclosures that nonprofits have to provide to the Internal Revenue Service when she came upon filings for an organization called the 1736 Family Crisis Center. It runs domestic violence shelters and programs to help the homeless. <\/p>\n Here\u2019s the astonishing discovery: It paid its chief executive officer, Carol Adelkoff, $1.6 million over the two most recent years for which filings were available. <\/p>\n Reached by phone, Adelkoff was quick to assure McGlinchy that the money wasn\u2019t all salary \u2014 about half of it was pay for unused vacation time she had accrued during four decades at the nonprofit.<\/p>\n Unused vacation pay with no cap<\/p>\n So, more than $800,000 in unused vacation pay? Would your employer allow that? Almost certainly not. <\/p>\n Under California law, employers can\u2019t deny you pay for unused vacation, but they can put reasonable caps on the amount you can accrue \u2014 usually 1\u00bd times the vacation hours allowed in a single year.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s actually extremely rare for a nonprofit, and frankly any company, not to cap vacation accrual,\u201d McGlinchy told me. <\/p>\n Adelkoff argued she had done the organization a favor by accepting the money \u2014 in two lump sums, each roughly matching her $400,000 salary \u2014 and clearing that huge liability off the books.<\/p>\n \u201cMy question was, well, if we\u2019re talking about the financial health of your organization, why was it permitted for this vacation to accrue in the first place?\u201d McGlinchy said. <\/p>\n She didn\u2019t get an answer.<\/p>\n Many questions left unanswered<\/p>\n When she asked repeatedly to see the board minutes from the meetings in which the enormous payout was approved, along with a copy of the organization\u2019s vacation policy, the nonprofit refused.<\/p>\n Even though the crisis center gets more than 90% of its revenue from taxpayers \u2014 including payments from the federal government and the cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach \u2014 technically it\u2019s not a public agency, so it\u2019s not legally required to make such documents public. <\/p>\n Of course, there\u2019s no law preventing a nonprofit from choosing to share its internal documents. The 1736 Family Crisis Center apparently decided it would be wiser to keep them private.<\/p>\n The center\u2019s lawyer wrote to McGlinchy that it was hard for Adelkoff to find time for vacations because of the breadth of her responsibilities, which include, among many other things, attending \u201cfundraisers, community functions, and 24-hour oversight of residential and other service locations.\u201d <\/p>\n Her home office across the Pacific<\/p>\n Which brought McGlinchy to the next question. Public records indicate Adelkoff sold her house in Palos Verdes Estates and moved to Hawaii decades ago; her primary residence has been listed on the Big Island for more than 10 years. Could that be true? How do you oversee Los Angeles shelters from the middle of the Pacific Ocean?<\/p>\n Over the phone, Adelkoff declined to say where she lived. She said that since she works for an organization that helps people escape abusers, she could become a target, so she had to keep her location secret as a matter of security.<\/p>\n Uh-huh. Aloha, Carol.<\/p>\n Top stories Romina Bergman, 2, reaches out to chimpanzee Yoshi and her newborn, center, alongside Saya Radin, 1, at the Los Angeles Zoo.<\/p>\n (Kayla Bartkowski\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n You soon could be paying more to visit the L.A. ZooFor the second year in a row, officials are moving to raise ticket prices<\/a> for the Los Angeles Zoo.The price hike, if passed by the full City Council, would raise general admissions prices to $29 for adults, $24 for children and $26 for seniors.LAUSD\u2019s first day of schoolAs 390,000 LAUSD students head back to class, the nation\u2019s second-largest district faces thousands of job cuts<\/a> needed to prevent a projected $3.6-billion deficit.Environmental concerns in Boyle Heights, shrinking enrollment and immigration anxieties deepen the uncertainty, even as test scores rise and key programs stay intact this year.California battles Trump plan to limit coastal oversightMore newsCommentary and opinionEditor\u2019s pickMore picksThings to doToday\u2019s recipe Gambas al Ajillo prepared by chef Aitor Zabala at Somni restaurant. <\/p>\n (Mariah Tauger\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Former cooking editor Genevieve Ko uses sherry to round out the flavors of this classic Spanish dish. Here\u2019s Ko\u2019s recipe for Gambas al Ajillo<\/a>, which is spicy, garlicky and full of shrimp. <\/p>\n Question for you<\/p>\n With Hollywood Burbank Airport\u2019s new $1.3-billion terminal<\/a>, and LAX\u2019s long-awaited people mover trains hopefully coming soon, there\u2019s a lot to look forward to at SoCal airports. Which is your favorite? Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com<\/a>, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.<\/p>\n Photo of the day Farmworkers adjust sprinkler coverage south of Bakersfield.<\/p>\n (Mark Boster \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Games Here\u2019s today\u2019s mini crossword<\/a>, plus our other free, daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games<\/a>.<\/p>\n Have a great day, from the Essential California team<\/p>\n Jack Dolan, investigative reporter How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com<\/a>. Check our top stories<\/a>, topics<\/a> and the latest articles<\/a> on latimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many of us who live in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other California cities encounter homeless people on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7,2299,1085,891,2300,2297,340,2303,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,2302,1086,1459,2301,2298,74,225,315,688],"class_list":["post-430784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california","tag-civic-revolt","tag-covid","tag-covid-19","tag-days","tag-essential-california","tag-israel","tag-l-a","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-may","tag-pandemic","tag-part","tag-president-biden","tag-red-county","tag-san-diego","tag-state","tag-time","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786545735_617_.jpeg\")
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Hugo Mart\u00edn, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Shi Bradley, audience intern<\/p>\n