Executive at Shelter for Homeless Loses Job

The original director of a pioneering but trouble-plagued North Hollywood shelter for the homeless has been fired, officials said Friday.

The Rev. William Randolph Griffin, 47, had been the head of the Valley Interfaith Shelter since shortly after it opened in April. He was demoted Nov. 1 to the shelter’s social services director, and his services were terminated Dec. 5, officials said.

He has left previous jobs for reasons that include questions about the validity of the academic and military credentials he claimed.

Management Problems Cited

Those who oversee the shelter did not list false credentials as a reason for Griffin’s departure. They said it was caused by management problems at the facility, the former Fiesta Motel.

The North Hollywood shelter--the San Fernando Valley’s largest--has been plagued by management difficulties and funding problems. It is turning away families, whom it was created to serve, and at the moment is housing only single people and homeless couples whose stay is financed by the county.

Changes in management began last month after a new nonprofit agency, Valley Shelter, took over the shelter’s operation from the Valley Interfaith Council, a nonprofit, interdenominational agency. Nancy Bianconi, former executive director of Better Valley Services, the agency that screens shelter residents, became the shelter’s executive director.

Shelter officials hope to get federal and county grants so it can begin accepting families again by early next year, said Tanya Tull, executive director of the social agency Para Los Ninos and a consultant to the shelter.

Riess Potterveld, president of the board of directors of Valley Shelter, said Griffin was “terminated” because of problems in management, record keeping and compliance with shelter contracts.

He added, “On the basis of what I know, I would give him a positive recommendation.”

Questionable Claims

However, Griffin had given shelter officials a resume that contained what appear to be false claims.

It said he received a Ph.D. in urban education from Columbia University in 1976, a master’s degree in special education from New York University in 1973 and a bachelor of arts degree in marketing and law from the same institution in 1962. It said he received a bachelor of sacred theology degree from the Biblical Seminary in New York, now called the New York Theological Seminary, in 1964.

Registrar’s officials at all three schools told The Times they have no record of Griffin’s ever having attended their institutions.

The resume said Griffin is a retired U. S. Air Force chaplain who attained the rank of captain. Sgt. Judith Sims of the Air Force’s Military Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base, Tex., said records showed that no William Randolph Griffin with Griffin’s Social Security number has ever served in the Air Force.

Telephoned on Dec. 5, Griffin denied that he was leaving the shelter job. He did not return several telephone calls Friday to respond to criticism by shelter officials and earlier employers.

One ex-employer, the Rev. E.V. Hill, minister of the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Compton, said Griffin was hired in the late 1970s as head of a church-sponsored youth employment and training program. Hill said Griffin did good work but was fired because he used false credentials to get the job.

A few years later, Griffin became pastor of the Ebenezer A.M.E. Zion Church in Seattle, a post he held from July, 1982, until September, 1983. He resigned after the church’s officials discovered problems in his handling of church funds, according to Mary Moore, former church financial secretary, and others.

Jobs Not Mentioned

The job is not listed on Griffin’s resume. Neither is one he took in May, 1985, as part-time food coordinator for the Sacramento Food Closet Coalition, a church-financed program to feed Sacramento’s homeless, hungry and elderly.

The program had a relatively small food budget, $23,000 for 1985. During Griffin’s six months as food coordinator, $3,000 to $4,000 worth of food was found to be missing and unaccounted for, said an accountant for the sponsoring Sacramento Interfaith Service Bureau.

“I couldn’t get him to bring in receipts,” the accountant said. “I couldn’t get him to follow procedures.” The accountant said she believes Griffin gave the food to needy people.

She said Griffin left abruptly after being asked to bring documents substantiating his resume to a six-month performance review meeting.

In October, 1984, Griffin went to the Shiloh Baptist Church in Sacramento “as a derelict needing help,” said the church’s then-pastor, the Rev. O.C. Jones. Griffin was given an unpaid post as an associate minister.

He was given occasional “love gifts” of several hundred dollars from church benevolent funds and earned occasional gratuities from the church for speeches and sermons, and for officiating at weddings and funerals, Jones said.

Jones said Griffin left the church in June, 1985, after church officials determined that his credentials were false.

Griffin took the Valley shelter job in early 1986 after being selected from 75 candidates by the Valley Interfaith Council’s board of directors.