The Daily Caller posted an article today about the Rev. Kenneth Fairley, pastor of Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The article reports that the Reverend allegedly profited after the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development gave $47,000 to the local government, which gave it, in turn, to a nonprofit called Pinebelt Community Services to renovate houses.

The article reports:

HUD has relationships with many such nonprofits that often function as expensive middlemen between government aid programs and those in need of help.

In Fairley’s case, Pinebelt had no capacity to do construction and told the city it had handed off the money yet again via a contract with a New Orleans company called Interurban Development. But Fairley had arranged with Interurban’s owner to make the hand-off an on-paper-only arrangement at an inflated price.

The article explains that the work that HUD paid for was done locally for less money than the grant, and Reverend Fairley kept the difference.

The article further explains:

HUD does little vetting of the middleman nonprofits to which it awards millions of tax dollars annually.

In Baltimore, for example, it has funneled millions through a nonprofit called Enterprise Community Partners to pass it on to neighborhoods. But instead, its CEO makes $577,000 and it has 48 officers who were paid $267,000 on overage.

Only half of its money actually made it to neighborhoods that needed it and no positive results have been demonstrated.

The idea of revitalizing our inner cities is good. However, when the money for these efforts comes from the federal government, there is no way that the projects can be watched carefully for fraud and misuse of funds. Unless local people are directly involved in improving their section of any given city, it is quite likely that the efforts to improve the area will not be successful. If you truly want to revitalize America’s inner cities, we need to change the culture there. The inner cities will not improve until the people living there develop pride in their surroundings. Non-profit groups can be very helpful in this effort, but obviously a vetting process is needed to find the appropriate group.