Area Program for Visually Impaired Is Target of Probe

A financially strapped program for visually impaired adults is under investigation by the state attorney general’s office for misuse of funds.

The Van Nuys-based Visually Handicapped Adults of the Valley is in the midst of a financial crisis that has led volunteers to threaten a strike unless chairwoman Helen Harris resigns.

Harris, who is blind and a leading activist for the visually impaired, says certain organization members are trying to remove her from office after she saved the group from financial ruin in the early ‘90s.

Investigators from the state attorney general’s office are trying to determine whether Harris or the board of directors that ran the group before Harris took office in 1991 used grant money intended for the organization to pay for services that were never rendered.

Lorraine Marcoux, a volunteer and former board member, alleges that in one instance Harris used $4,900 in group funds to pay a writer to produce a grant proposal that was never delivered.

Harris denied the allegation Friday and said if any funds were mismanaged, it was before she took over the organization. She maintained that since taking over, she has helped the group reduce its operating costs.

“The whole thing is a mess,” said Marcoux, who is among the 11-person group asking for Harris’ resignation.

Marcoux and Harris said Friday they are aware of the investigation, but both deny any wrongdoing.

Deputy Atty. Gen. James Cordi acknowledged the state is looking into the group, but said he could not elaborate because it is an ongoing investigation.

Harris, who is also president and founder of Retinitis Pigmentosa International, a organization that raises funds to research the disease for which it is named, said the investigation is concentrating on the board members who served before she became chairwoman.

“They came to me to save the place,” Harris said. “And I did. If there was any wrongdoing, it happened before I got here.”

Marcoux said some of the allegations are hard to prove because Harris often included Visually Handicapped Adults of the Valley in fund-raisers for her other group, Retinitis Pigmentosa International.

In an attempt to get Harris to resign, Marcoux and others have threatened to stop volunteering at the center and leave the approximately 160 people who weekly use its programs out in the cold.

Harris said she will not resign until the group’s financial problems are rectified.

“I can’t walk away from something while it still needs me,” she said. “If they want me out, I’ll leave. But not until [things get better].”

The investigation comes at a time when the organization is scrambling to find money to stay afloat.

Last year the group, which provides classes and activities for visually handicapped adults in a room at St. Andrews Lutheran Church in Van Nuys, lost a key grant from the city Department of Transportation.

The grant provided most of the organization’s $250,000 budget, primarily used to operate five vans that provided door-to-door service for the clients. It also covered training for the drivers to work with the blind.

The grant was not renewed after transportation department officials determined the visually handicapped clients could be transported by other city services.

Financial problems are nothing new to the program. In 1994, Visually Handicapped Adults of the Valley was unable to pay its rent. Eventually, Harris found a private donor to cover the expenses.