(The Center Square) -Concerns about the use of Washington state’s Community Reinvestment Program (CRP) funds have now moved on to the Tacoma Urban League, including the organization’s director being put on leave, interviews show.
CRP was created to support homeownership for minorities by providing grants and funding to programs that assist low-income households, and to support minority owned business development.
The funds are administered by the Washington Department of Commerce and initially amounted to $200 million in taxpayer funds to lift communities “disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs” and housing discrimination of the past. It is similar to the race-based Covenant Homeownership Program, which The Center Square has written about.
As reported by The Center Square, Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle is accused of potential self-dealing and is now under investigation by the office of Attorney General Nick Brown.
The whistleblower, Corey Orvold, who is a real estate managing broker who attempted to gain access to CRP funds for her clients, obtained public records that indicate some administrators [ULMC] of the program funds may have been providing loans or debt relief using taxpayer money to their own close circle, including family members.
The Tacoma Urban League (TUL) has also been granted millions for minority owned business development, and days after The Center Square article about the Seattle Urban League investigation, TUL’s CEO, Desireé Wilkins-Finch, was placed on paid administrative leave.
“The Tacoma Urban League Board of Directors is aware of recent community discussion and speculation regarding the organization and its leadership,” read a statement on the TUL website. “The Board takes any concern related to the integrity of our operations seriously. Consistent with our commitment to transparency and accountability, the Board has initiated a confidential, independent, legal third-party investigative review to ensure that all questions are addressed through the proper process. To protect the integrity of that review and respect all parties involved, we will not be commenting on specific details while it is underway.”
The Center Square reached out to Wilkins-Finch for comment and initially received a response via text.
“Can you tell me what it is I’m being accused of, because I have no clue. I have not been given a reason,” wrote Wilkins-Finch, suggesting she did not know why she was placed on leave.
The Center Square sent Wilkins-Finch further inquiry via email, but she did not receive a response in time for publication.
Tacoma Urban League directed media inquiries to Dana Hill with Hill PR.
Hill said she had initially spoken with Wilkins-Finch after a reporter reached out following the alleged self-dealing with the Seattle Urban League.
“The reporter suggested there was money missing from the Tacoma Urban League, at which point I reached out to our CEO Desireé and said, this has officially landed on our playground and we need to respond,” said Hill.
She explained Wilkins-Finch was drafting a community message when the TUL board decided to place their CEO on paid leave.
“It’s a terrible look,” said Hill suggesting the allegations against the Seattle Urban League are much more fleshed out than what she calls ‘rumors’ about TUL. “With the other story, there were names written in terms of participants, in terms of dates that they applied in terms of internal people that they worked with. This is different for us. We don’t have any of that. What we are dealing with in this crisis is a rumor that was thrown our way.”
From the perspective of Noemi Cagatin-Porter, there’s a lot more than just rumors about how TUL has been operating.
Cagatin-Porter founded CJK Community Homes. The website says the non-profit “is committed to providing clean, safe, contemporary, and affordable housing and proven supportive case management services to low-income Pierce County residents to reduce the impact of poverty.”
“CJK Community Homes was informed that we would be awarded $1.5 million through the Community Reinvestment Program (CRP) from the Washington State Department of Commerce,” Cagatin-Porter told The Center Square. “We were led to believe these funds would be distributed to BIPOC-led organizations to build housing that increases access and stability for families. Over time, however, the process became unclear, and transparency around how decisions were made started to fade.”
Cagatin-Porter said she never learned what happened to the $1.5 million her organization was told they would receive.
“These funds came from taxpayers, and Commerce entrusted local leaders and organizations to use them responsibly, with integrity and accountability. Not everyone misused the system, but recent allegations related to the Community Reinvestment Program have raised concerns that oversight may have fallen short,” she said. “When public dollars are involved, leaders have an obligation to ensure processes are transparent, equitable, and truly serve the intended purpose.”
Corey Orvold-the whistleblower-told The Center Square that she volunteered with Tacoma Urban League for more than eight years before resigning as she uncovered alleged misuse of funds in Seattle and grew more concerned about TUL.
“We had taken a non-existing housing program, and we had built home buyer classes that were a community resource. It was a great opportunity for community to come in, not feel like they’re going to be pressured into sales, but also, they were empowered to purchase a home, even if they needed another job for income purposes or needed to pay off some debt, whatever it was, we wanted to help community,” said Orvold.
When she started running into roadblocks for clients hoping to access CRP funds through the Seattle Urban League, Orvold said she went to Wilkins-Finch at TUL.
“When I told her what was going on with Seattle Urban League and the repeated community members that were contacting me coming into the Tacoma Urban League and complaining about not getting anywhere with the Seattle Urban League, Desiree Wilkins-Finch told me, ‘Our hands aren’t clean,’” said Orvold.
Orvold said she has concerns about Wilkins-Finch bringing the Tacoma Black Fund, an organization Wilkins-Finch founded under the same umbrella as the Tacoma Urban League, into the Urban League.
“Prior to her becoming the president and CEO for the Urban League, she ran the Tacoma Black Fund,” Orvold said. “They were two standalone organizations at that time. And the more questions that we started asking, suddenly the Black Fund was put underneath umbrella of the Urban League.”
She said that many community members have been raising concerns for months but have been afraid to speak out publicly.
“The problem with all of this is how hush-hush everyone’s being and how we’re not getting the answers as quickly as we’d like from the attorney general’s office. We’re not getting the answers as quickly as we’d like from the Department of Commerce, despite the fact that they’re aware of this,” said Orvold. “It’s been my belief that the reason why it’s not as regulated as what it should have been when it was first allocated is because of the fact that it’s people of color. And even as a half-Black woman myself, I can identify that nobody wants to be called a racist. That’s the problem is it should have been the same rules for everybody.”
The Center Square reached out to the Department of Commerce to confirm CRP funds provided to TUL and received a response via email from Media Relations Manager for Commerce Amelia Lamb.
-Tacoma Urban League received two awards for $5,005,000:
$5M for “By-and-for-Led Lending Agency Support: Provided grants for lending capital and operational expenses to existing and emerging lenders led by Black, Latine and tribal communities, enhancing their capacity to serve their communities.”$5,000 for “Technical Assistance and Capacity Building: These grants supported by-and-for nonprofits, grassroots organizations, faith-based entities, tribal 501(c)(3)s and other community-based groups that were certified and registered with CRP.
Tacoma Urban League did not provide details on who has been hired for an outside investigation, and the office of AG Brown would not confirm if that office is investigating TUL.
