Those sidewalk solicitors purporting to collect money for the United Homeless Organization are pocketing the funds themselves – without a city license to be working the streets, The Post has learned.
On any given day, about 40 or so UHO collection sites, notable for the giant water jugs in which they collect money, can be found around Manhattan.
The solicitors cry out, “Help the homeless,” or “Feed the homeless.” Some ask if you can spare just a penny.
But the glorified beggars pay the UHO $15 a day for a foldable table and jug and personally pocket whatever else they raise – which can be up to $80 in four or five hours.
“It’s almost like giving a homeless guy a suit and a tie,” said Omari, who was stationed at Seventh Avenue and 57th Street last week and said he was staying with a friend.
It’s begging “executive, corporate style,” he said. “You’re putting a little sophistication into it.”
Another man, stationed in Union Square, who called himself “Papa Smurf,” confessed he was not forthright with donors about where the money goes. “If they don’t ask, we don’t tell,” he said.
College student Richard Sofia had just made a donation last week when The Post told him how the UHO collections work.
“I want my quarter back. That’s ridiculous,” he said.
The city’s Human Resources Administration says the UHO does not have the license required for an individual or organization to solicit on the street, nor has it ever applied for one.
The charity, which is based in the Bronx apartment of its founder, Stephen Riley, reported contributions of $97,890, according to its recently released federal tax forms.
Those forms are rife with murky expenses such as $3,000 for “Xmas” and $42,000 in dubious stipends.
The stipends are used as emergency assistance for the homeless or for the UHO’s administrative volunteers, most of whom are homeless or in temporary housing, said John Moss, the charity’s lawyer.
But recipients of the stipends include a UHO “volunteer” who lives with the charity’s founder.
The organization has also failed to file requested financial documents with the Better Business Bureau since 2003.
Riley did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The UHO calls the street solicitors “outreach workers” and says they are or were homeless. It claims they don’t just collect money, but provide information on city services to other needy people.
The Post reported the UHO’s methods in 2001, but nothing has been done to stop them.