Top executives at several San Francisco nonprofit organizations tasked with tackling the area’s growing homelessness issue are making more than twice as much as the city’s average household income, a new investigation found.
These nonprofit groups, while independent from government, are central to the city’s homelessness strategy. Experts say that public trust depends on transparency, how these groups manage their finances, measure the success of their programs, and determine executive pay.
Since 2017, the 20 nonprofit organizations with the largest active contracts from San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing have been awarded nearly $2 billion.
The San Francisco Chronicle did a deep dive into how much these groups made in fiscal 2023, including charitable contributions, private donations, and contracts with the city. The newspaper also took a look at compensation, which included benefits, bonuses, retirement, deferred compensation, and other nontaxable benefits among the top executives who held some of the city’s most lucrative homelessness contracts. The average was $300,000 a year, though the top end was near $680,000. San Francisco’s median household income was $141,446, based on 2019-2023 Census Bureau data.
California law stipulates that a nonprofit organization’s board of directors must set executive pay and ensure the compensation is “just and reasonable.” That usually means conducting a comparability analysis, which looks at the organization’s complexity and fiscal health as well as executive pay at similar groups or private companies.
“You want maximum performance and to be able to attract the best people … but without crossing that line where it’s hard for people to justify how someone could earn that much money,” said Joan Harrington, a fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.
The salary range for the CEOs at the top 10 nonprofit organizations in San Francisco ranged from $278,700 to $679,900. Heluna Health CEO Blayne Cutler made the most money.
Cutler joined Heluna Health in 2014. Prior to that, she was a physician trained in infectious disease and public health. She served as New York City’s Assistant Commissioner for HIV Prevention and Control under Democratic Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio. The nonprofit public health organization recorded $670 million in income, nearly three times more than any other organization on the list.
Steve Good, the president and CEO of Five Keys Schools and Programs, pulled in $451,500. Five Keys is a nationally recognized “trauma-informed restorative justice organization” that is dedicated to ending mass incarceration. Its total income was $122 million. Five Keys was founded in 2003 by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department as the first accredited charter high school in the nation for adults in county jails. Since then, it has expanded to 14 California counties and offers high school education and access to college and workforce programs for underserved people in the area.
Al Gilbert is the president and CEO of Felton Institute, a nonprofit group that provides services to people experiencing homelessness by “removing barriers to housing” and offering “a range of services to help people secure safe housing and other essential needs.” Gilbert took home $392,200 in pay and bonuses in 2023, while the Felton Institute’s income for the year was $66.8 million.
Rounding out the top five on the list is Mary Stokes, the executive director at Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco, who made $385,700 a year, and Louis Chicoine, of Abode Services, who made $361,700.
HEGSETH RENAMES NAVY VESSEL NAMED AFTER HARVEY MILK
Californians have consistently cited homelessness as a top issue in the state. Of the nation’s 771,500 people experiencing homelessness, more than 187,000, or about 24%, were in California. Two in three were unsheltered, accounting for almost half of the country’s unsheltered population.
In San Francisco, more than 8,300 people were homeless, a 7% increase from two years earlier.