GROUP ASKS ‘HANDS’ TO SPEND FUNDS

A national coalition of homeless and hunger agencies demanded Tuesday that $15 million Hands Across America raised for the poor last spring be spent immediately.

“We have no particular interest in getting the money released to us,” said Robert Hayes, counsel for the National Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit network representing the interests of more than 4,000 shelters, soup kitchens and food banks. “We just want the money released to where it can do some good immediately. It’s just not a difficult process, contrary to what the Hands Across America people seem to think.”

Martin Rogol, executive director of USA for Africa, which sponsored Hands Across America, told The Times that most of the $15 million would be distributed over the next two to four months. About $600,000 in grants to relief agencies were announced last month.

Rogol said that immediate disbursement of the remaining funds would not be responsible or particularly helpful. By parceling the money out to worthy projects, the foundation could make effective use of the money, he said. Simply spending it immediately would buy little more than two 49-cent meals, on average, or a single night’s lodging for America’s estimated 3 million homeless, he added.

While acknowledging that the coalition is a legitimate organization that USA for Africa has sought out for advice in fund distribution in the past, Rogol questioned Hayes’ motives in making his public plea two days before Christmas.

“There’s an old Associated Press notion that if you want to get a story out, you harpoon a whale,” Rogol said. “So I guess we’re the whale.”

In a letter he sent Tuesday to Rogol, Hayes praised the foundation created by Ken Kragen, Harry Belafonte, Quincy Jones and other celebrities two years ago in the wake of the Ethiopian famine. He cited its work in raising money and awareness over both African and American hunger as “impressive.”

But Hayes was severely critical of the foundation’s “elaborate--and costly--mechanisms to distribute the modest $15 million raised by Hands Across America.

“Mechanisms are in place to get those funds to the people in greatest need,” Hayes concluded in his letter, which was sent out simultaneously to news organizations across the country. “Donors to Hands Across America have an expectation--and a right--to have their funds provide relief now. As winter deepens, homeless and hungry Americans cannot wait for an organizational apparatus to decide that it is finally ready to help.”

Hayes told The Times that his letter to Rogol “is not an indictment or criticism but a friendly prod. To get moving. Now.”

But Rogol remained satisfied with the foundation’s distribution method at the same time he was critical of the coalition’s timing in publicizing its appeal to spend the $15 million now.

“For this money to have any effect, we have to do it somewhat differently,” Rogol said. “We have the process in place, we have the system we believe in, and there are obviously people who are going to disagree with it, like the coalition.”

Within a month of the May 25 mega-event which attempted to link 5.5 million Americans from one coast to the other in a single, continuous line, USA for Africa officials initiated a complex process to distribute donations equally and fairly to all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The 15-minute hand-holding sing-along was designed to raise money for the poor and demonstrate a national concern for the homeless.

“The rest of the money will go out in the next two to four months,” Rogol told The Times. “All the money should be committed if not spent by the anniversary of the event.”

He said 8,000 to 9,000 shelters and other relief agencies have requested Hands Across America fund distribution guidelines.

The foundation’s process allots a fixed portion of the $15 million to each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. It then requires relief agencies to hold state-by-state conferences to decide how to divide up their share. That part of the process is currently under way, Rogol said. Such conferences encourage relief agencies that often compete against one another to learn to cooperate instead, Rogol said.

The allocation process also encourages them to get corporations, local government and other fund-raising agencies to match the Hands Across America grants, thereby maximizing the ultimate good that the $15 million will do.

Hayes called the process “an elaborate new system for distributing funds that is just reinventing the wheel and wasting time.

“There’s no problem to distributing the money. They can break down their relatively paltry dollars any way they want and distribute it equitably,” he said.

At the same time that Hayes sent his letter to Rogol, the coalition released a 39-page report detailing results of its own efforts to help the Century City-based foundation spend $2.2 million last spring.

“Basically, Rogol came to us last February and said, ‘We want some credibility. We want to put out some money and we don’t want it misused,’ ” said Andy Raubeson, founder of a Los Angeles Skid Row project called Single Room Occupancy and vice chairman of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

According to the report, entitled “Doing Good Well: A Study of Hands Across America Funding,” the $2.2 million was distributed in a series of small grants to 160 feeding and shelter programs in 58 cities and 25 states--all in a matter of a few weeks.

In Los Angeles, for example, two $50,000 grants were made to the House of Ruth, a small shelter for women and children, and to St. Vincent de Paul’s men’s shelter, both located downtown.

According to the report, the House of Ruth “was able to double its capacity by purchasing a second house which will accommodate 15 to 20 individuals each night.” St. Vincent de Paul “was able to add overnight facilities and other services to serve their clients” by adding about 100 shelter beds to its drop-in center.

Rogol said that the original $2.2 million came out of the royalties from sales of the record “We Are the World.” The record generated an estimated $52.1 million to date, most of which was spent on African relief. But under its original spending policy, the foundation set aside 10% of the African relief funds for the U.S. homeless and hungry.

Because Hands Across America brought in donations from all across the United States and not just from the accounting offices of the record company that distributed “We Are the World,” the problem of equal distribution of the money is far more complicated, according to Rogol.

“To be fair to everyone, we can’t just willy-nilly pick a few groups over others,” he said.

Raubeson said he believed the delays are more cynical than that and accused the foundation of attempting to maximize its publicity in distributing the money over a long period of time.

“I think there’s a lot of ego involved,” he said of the celebrities who sit on the USA for Africa board of directors. “They are people who represent an industry who place image above reality.

“I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out that homelessness has seasonal patterns,” said Raubeson. “The need expands during the winter, here in L.A. too. Here we are a couple of days from Christmas and there are still no grants in hand.

“I’ve got to tell you that these were the same kind of criticisms aimed at USA for Africa and their African relief effort: It took too long to get the money into the pipeline. I thought in the early stages that they realized that when they came to us. Now it seems they are going back to their old ways.”

Rogol said the foundation has purposely shunned publicity during the holidays. He pointed out that the coalition, with its Christmas Eve criticism, has been the publicity seeker, not USA for Africa.