Results tagged “uho”

Cuomo Targets United Homeless Organization in Lawsuit

Those curbside tables manned by people soliciting donations for the United Homeless Organization are nothing more than a scam that funnels money to the bosses at the top, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. You'll recall that UHO founder Steven Riley was deliciously skewered in a classic Fox 5 "Shame" segment last month; now Riley and UHO director Myra Walker are in Cuomo's crosshairs, accused of co-opting "a tax-exempt, charitable corporate structure for their own benefit"—benefits such as paying Riley's bills for cable and Weight Watchers!

Arnold Diaz, who famously exposed the Drunken Negro Cookie baker in his engrossing Fox 5 SHAME segment, is back to send another victim into a shame spiral. This time it's the president of the United Homeless Organization, which sets up tables on seemingly every street corner soliciting donations for the homeless. If the operation had ever seemed a little shady to you, well, it probably is. Diaz digs up the questionable tax filing from the group's president, Steven Riley, and confronts him in Union Square about it. Things get shamelessly physical.

2008_12_uho.jpgToday's Post once again blows the lid on what has long been a not so well-kept secret: that the folks around town who sit alongside the jugs labeled UHO (for United Homeless Organization) actually keep that money for themselves while merely paying a $15 a day fee for the jug and a folding table. The Post labels them "glorified beggars" and talks to one who says that the jug is like "giving a homeless person a suit." They also speak to a college student who was irate and told them, "I want my quarter back. That's ridiculous." The paper also reports that UHO does not have the required license to solicit on the street and accuse them of "murky expenses" coming from the nearly $100,000 in contributions the organization reported last year.

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