Solano nonprofit executive lived in domestic violence safe house rented from city of Fairfield

Cassandra Chanhsy, an advocate who worked for the nonprofit SafeQuest Solano, was doing yardwork outside a Fairfield safe house for victims of domestic violence and rape in early 2021, when she was surprised to see a man walk out. Not only was it unusual to see a man at the safe house, she thought it was empty, as it had been shut down for months. Chanhsy recognized the man as Richard Bruce Paschal Jr., SafeQuest’s business officer, who typically went by his middle name.

“And I'm like, ‘What are you doing here?’” Chanhsy recalled.

“I live here,” he told her.

SafeQuest — which has provided services for victims of domestic violence in Solano County for nearly 40 years — rents the house from the city of Fairfield for $1 per year, according to the city’s contract with the organization. But Chanhsy said she hadn’t worked in the shelter since late 2019, when the organization closed it. Her manager told her and the residents that the shelter was closing because of a plumbing issue, Chanhsy recalled in an interview.

When the Fairfield house closed, Chanhsy and the roughly 10 people who were staying there went to a different safe house in Vallejo. But she occasionally returned to Fairfield as a volunteer when the grass was overgrown or leaves needed raking.

It’s unclear how long Paschal lived at the Fairfield safe house, but three other former SafeQuest employees said they were aware that Paschal lived there. One former employee who requested to remain anonymous said that SafeQuest executive director Mary Anne Branch told her that Paschal was living in the house as part of his compensation. In a brief phone interview, Paschal declined to say whether he ever lived in the house.

An anonymous complaint that was emailed to the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services in May 2022 that the Sun obtained states that he lived there from sometime in the summer of 2020 until March 2021. “No victims were taken in instead,” it states.

Meanwhile, Chanhsy and another victim advocate said the Vallejo shelter was largely empty. One advocate who worked there for a month before she resigned provided documentation that SafeQuest turned away 10 women in that time, saying there was no room when plenty of beds were available.

When operational, the Fairfield house had a capacity of 12 people per night, according to records submitted to the city of Fairfield. An advocate who worked in the Vallejo house said that its capacity was similar. But employees like Chanhsy said those beds sat empty while they worked alone in Vallejo with nothing to do. The organization received hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal and state grant funding, yet a log of late payments obtained by the Sun shows that many employees weren’t paid on time. The records show that the organization at times owed thousands of dollars in back pay and penalties.

The lack of services draws into question a bedrock service for Solano County that governments throughout the county rely on to protect victims of violent crime. SafeQuest has operational agreements to provide advocacy for victims of sexual assault and other services with nearly every police agency in Solano County, the Solano County District Attorney’s Office and Solano County Superior Court.

Millions in funding, few services

Former employees, including Chanhsy, said that the shelters in Fairfield and Vallejo were mostly empty for two years starting in late 2019. Records the organization submitted to the city of Fairfield showed that the safe house there was used very little in 2020 and 2021, even as the city had effectively donated it to the organization for that purpose.

But SafeQuest’s services were particularly necessary in those years as the COVID-19 pandemic drove an increase in domestic violence incidents around the world. A 2021 United Nations report found there was a global “shadow pandemic” of violence against women following stay-at-home-orders. A study by the American Journal of Emergency Medicine reported a spike in domestic violence-related calls to police immediately following lockdown measures in the United States.

According to SafeQuest, there was a 9% increase in instances of domestic violence in Solano County during the first two months of the pandemic. “Meanwhile, shelters, childcare centers, and rape crisis centers are overwhelmed and understaffed,” a 2020 grant application by SafeQuest stated.

The kinds of services SafeQuest is supposed to offer — in particular, emergency housing for people escaping domestic violence and transition services — can also help to prevent homelessness as the region struggles with a crippling shortage of affordable housing.

Studies show domestic violence is a major reason many women become homeless. According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, between 22% and 57% of homeless women say that domestic violence was the immediate cause of their homelessness, and 38% of domestic violence victims lose their homes at some point in their lives. The same organization says that victims of domestic violence often leave an abuser multiple times and experience multiple periods of homelessness. Having a safe shelter available, like those SafeQuest is tasked with providing, can help to prevent that.

During the period when the former employees allege that SafeQuest provided few services, the organization was receiving substantial assistance from federal, state and local governments. In the fiscal year ending in June 2018 — the most recent year available — the organization raised nearly $1.5 million in revenue and had about $1.4 million in expenses, according to the organization’s public filings with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

A large portion of the agency’s revenue comes from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, which directed state and federal funds to the organization to provide access to shelter and other services. According to records of funding awards provided to the Sun through a public records request, Cal OES provided SafeQuest with a $287,000 grant to operate the Fairfield safe house in late 2018, more than $600,000 in grants in 2019, and combined grants of more than $1 million each in 2020 and 2021.

Grant applications to Cal OES show that SafeQuest was required to provide services that included operating safe houses and a crisis hotline, responding to law enforcement calls for assistance, providing transportation for simple errands like grocery shopping, counseling for children, court advocacy, and referrals to other housing. As of 2019, SafeQuest operated shelters in Benicia, Fairfield and Vallejo, according to those applications.

Former employees reported some of the issues with the organization’s record keeping and provision of services, including that Paschal was living in the safe house, to Cal OES. Grants monitoring chief Toni Curtis acknowledged receiving the complaint, according to an email obtained by the Vallejo Sun. A spokesperson for Cal OES declined to comment on whether the agency had investigated their allegations. City of Fairfield officials said that the city intended to seek a new provider for the safe house, but it was not a priority.

Paschal would not say during a phone interview whether he ever lived in the Fairfield safe house. He said, “It had to do with the COVID shutdown,” then asked for questions in writing and abruptly ended the phone call.

Branch and Paschal declined to respond to extensive written questions. Branch provided a brief written statement which said, “We continue to focus on our mission of ending violence in our homes, schools, workplaces and community, providing quality services to our clients and collaborating with our community partners that include Cal OES, all of the cities in Solano County and other agencies serving survivors.”

Fairfield safe house had history of issues with providers

SafeQuest Solano was founded in 1976 to operate a shelter for survivors of domestic violence and their children. It incorporated as a nonprofit in 1983 under the name Solano Women’s Crisis Center and later rebranded to reflect that it serves victims regardless of gender identity, according to its website.

SafeQuest first started operating a shelter at the home in Fairfield in the mid-1990s. But in the early 2000s, it had difficulty making payments on the house, so the city of Fairfield purchased the home in 2003 and rented it back to SafeQuest for $1 per year, according to city records.

But SafeQuest left the home in February 2009 after the city’s Redevelopment Agency gave SafeQuest a 90-day order to vacate, according to a city report from that year.

On July 1, 2009, the city awarded a new lease to another organization, LIFT3, to operate a shelter with a new lease that provided “several operation benchmarks that will improve services in Fairfield,” according to city records.

LIFT3’s tenure in the home ended after its director was indicted. The organization was founded in 2005 by Vallejo resident Claudia Humphrey. By 2013, Humphry and LIFT3 were under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General for misusing grant funds after LIFT3 employees reported that the organization had not paid  them.

The investigation concluded that Humphrey had used LIFT3 funds to pay for personal items such as handbags, gasoline, groceries, clothes and trips; transferred funds to other family-owned businesses; hired family members for key management positions and had an unusual number of cash transactions.

Humphrey was indicted in 2016 for theft of public money, obstruction of a federal audit, and alteration or falsification of records in a federal investigation. In 2017, she reached an agreement to plead guilty to one count of theft of public money and one count of alteration or falsification of records in a federal investigation and was sentenced to 6 months in prison.

The same year, the city of Fairfield ended LIFT3’s lease, saying that it “was not in compliance with the lease agreement,” according to city records. The city proposed giving the lease back to SafeQuest, which started operating the shelter again as of Aug. 31, 2018.

SafeQuest’s longtime director and most of the executive staff left the organization during the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Robert Tobin, a nonprofit veteran who had previously been executive director of Sacramento Cottage Housing Inc., took over as executive director.

Tobin wrote in a letter to Cal OES that the agency had grown by 50% over the previous five years, but in 2017 had “a nearly complete turnover in program management staff and board leadership.”

By the end of 2019, Tobin, too, was gone. Mary Anne Branch, who was chair of SafeQuest’s operations committee, was named SafeQuest’s interim executive director in October 2019, according to Cal OES records. Prior to that, she was vice president of clinical operations for Meridian Foresight, which operated seven skilled nursing facilities in Northern California and a senior living facility, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Branch hired Raquelmarie Clark, a grant writer and sexual assault crisis counselor, to be SafeQuest’s director of development and acting grants manager. Clark said in an interview that when she came on board, there was only $140 left in the bank account and the organization was unable to pay its staff on time . Paychecks were late or short for about nine months, according to Clark.

Clark provided a spreadsheet to the Sun last year which showed how much was owed to each staff member during that time and estimated that the organization owed tens of thousands of dollars in fees under California labor laws. The document shows that between September 2019 and January 2020, eight of 24 employees who were owed penalties for late pay had been laid off. Five more — including Tobin — had resigned.

SafeQuest’s advocates saw dwindling clients

Cassandra Chanhsy was hired as a safe house advocate at the end of 2018. A former loan officer and the mother of five children, she said she took the job because she thought she could make a difference and help people there. In her first year, she weathered the turnover with Tobin and several other staff members leaving. Shortly after that, she said she stopped being paid on time.

Chanhsy was working overnight at the Fairfield safehouse, but she said that the house shut down in late 2019. She, along with the remaining clients, moved to a different safe house that SafeQuest operated in Vallejo.

She said that there were about 10 people staying in the Fairfield safe house when they moved. But after the remaining clients from Fairfield left, there was usually only one person staying at the Vallejo house, a woman who appeared to be living there permanently. Chanhsy thought it was unusual that the woman lived there permanently because typically such shelters are used by people immediately fleeing an abusive situation and leave after a few nights.

“I remember in Fairfield, I would work graveyard shifts,” Chanhsy said. “And I would actually really do my service and help the clients because they would come up to me knocking on my door to cry. And I would help them sort through their emotions, be there for them.”

She said she would read to them, cook with them, help them fold laundry or offer companionship any way she could. “And I love doing that,” she said. “But then after the Fairfield safe house shut down, I was transferred to Vallejo, graveyard shift. And I don’t know what happened, I was there by myself most of the time.”

The organization’s fortunes seemed to be improving as she was receiving paychecks again. But the shelter remained mostly empty.

“I would feel guilty,” Chanhsy said. “No one else is there. I'm just literally there overnight by myself.”

Chanhsy said that when she asked Branch or her supervisor why they weren’t receiving more clients at the Vallejo safe house, she was told it was because the organization lacked the funding to provide the necessary services.

Chanhsy said she was told that the Fairfield house was closed because of a plumbing issue. But occasionally she still stopped by voluntarily to keep the yard clear.

“I went to the backyard and front yard to do some gardening and to do weeds and clean some stuff out. I went to use the restroom, the light was working. I went to turn on the water, the water was nice and warm,” she said. “Based on my observation, everything was functioning normally.”

It was during one of those visits in March 2021 that she saw Paschal, the business officer, come out of the house and tell her he was living there, she said.

According to budgets submitted to Cal OES with SafeQuest’s grant applications, Paschal was taking a reduced rate for his services to SafeQuest at that time. His job description stated that he was “improving policies and protocols impacting delivery of victim services program elements” and “implements systems with built-in quality controls for financial accountability and efficiency of the agency as a whole.”

At the time, SafeQuest’s budget said that it was paying $1,200 per month to rent the Vallejo safe house and $2,850 to rent a safe house in Benicia, although the city of Benicia said in a recent funding application for a new safe house that its safe house had been closed since shortly after the pandemic started.

SafeQuest allegedly turned clients away from empty shelters

Jeanna Coursey, who worked as an advocate for Safequest for about a month in 2021, said that the lack of clients coming into the Vallejo shelter was not for lack of people seeking help. She said her supervisor rejected people because they were not a good “fit,” and attempted to send them to other organizations for help.

Coursey said that SafeQuest logged calls to its crisis line, taking down information such as whether the person needed shelter and what was done in response to their need for shelter. Coursey documented 10 people who were turned away during the month she worked there. According to her notes, at least seven were told that the shelter was full or not available.  She also said that not all calls were logged appropriately.

Coursey worked at the safe house for a month and said that she received only one client in addition to the woman who lived there permanently. It took about two weeks for her to receive that single client, but by then no one had trained her how to do a client intake, she said.

Coursey had been a volunteer advocate in Napa before she was hired by SafeQuest in August 2021. She said she received no training and was left to work alone in the Vallejo safehouse and field phone calls on the organization’s hotline.

In fact, Coursey said that she was told to go to the Vallejo safe house on her first day but her supervisor didn’t arrive until about an hour after she got there. “She went over new hire paperwork with me, sat at the table with me for an hour, maybe two, and then she left,” Coursey said. “And I was there by myself for the rest of the week.”

“I didn't have any direction of what I was supposed to be doing,” she said, “so I felt very lost.”

Coursey said she picked up her only client — a victim of sexual assault — at a hospital using the company van.

“I brought her in, I found pieces of packets, what they called an intake packet. And so I was able to piece together what I thought was the intake packet, and I went over that with her, not knowing if I was doing it correctly,” she said. “I discharged her the next day by myself.”

Coursey left the organization after only a month because she was dismayed by how it was operating. “I can't imagine if I was that person who needed help, and I had to call them for help, and how I was treated,” she said. “They have a duty, a responsibility and they’re being paid to do a thing. And they're not only not doing the thing, they’re causing damage and potentially costing lives.”

Fairfield continues renting to SafeQuest despite concerns

In October 2021, SafeQuest sought to renew its lease for the Fairfield safe house. Branch authorized Paschal to discuss the lease terms with the city. As of November, Paschal’s role was listed in budgets submitted to the state as a “business specialist.” In that role, he provided “expert advice, analysis and solutions” to the executive director and handled “a variety of tasks in order to ensure that all interactions between the organizations and others are positive and productive.”

But upon receiving the request, the city of Fairfield realized that they had not received any performance reports or financial statements from SafeQuest in the three years it had been operating the house, according to city emails obtained by the Sun through a public records request.

Jesus Morales, then-senior housing project manager for the city of Fairfield, sought the records from SafeQuest. He also inspected the house in late 2021 and observed that no clients were there at the time.

“I asked the onsite manager about the occupancy,” Morales later wrote in an email. “She mentioned that due to the COVID 19 pandemic, they had experienced a low occupancy level due to observation of COVID 19 protocols.”

In November 2021, Branch provided a document to the city with semi-annual performance metrics for safe house stays.

The records state that 32 victims stayed in a safe house in the first half of 2020 and 52 people in the second half of that year. In the first half of 2021, only two people had stayed in a safe house, according to the records. As of November 2021, when Branch submitted the records, nine people had stayed in a safe house since July.

SafeQuest declined to answer questions clarifying the information in the document.

Morales sought further information. In a Jan. 18, 2022 email, he asked Branch for audited financial statements and other financial documents. “We want to look at those statements for 2018-2021,” he wrote. “We want to review the financial ability of SafeQuest to provide the service at the property. The information you provided covers 4-5 expense items and doesn't show costs such as wages and benefits for staff working there, supplies, food, insurance, maintenance, etc.”

Morales later proceeded with renewing SafeQuest’s lease. On March 15, Morales wrote to City Attorney David Lim to execute a new lease. But the lease renewal was put on hold after Fairfield interim City Manager David Gassaway wrote an email to Morales on March 30, 2022, inquiring about the property. Gassaway said that a city councilmember had received an allegation that the house was not actively used and may be vacant frequently.

SafeQuest then submitted a spreadsheet to the city that reported there had been 372 shelter stays from January-March 2022.

But even that fell below Fairfield’s expectations for the property. “Per the attached spreadsheet, you have been at 33%-36% occupancy for the first three months of 2022,” Morales wrote in an April 6, 2022, email. “What is your plan to increase capacity?” Morales suggested a conference call to address outstanding issues. The emails provided by the city did not include any response from SafeQuest and SafeQuest declined to respond to any questions.

As of June, the city had changed course and was seeking a new operator for the property, according to an email from Morales. But the city hasn’t proceeded with finding a new provider.

In response to questions from the Vallejo Sun, Gassaway — now the city manager — said that SafeQuest remains in the property under a month-to-month lease. Gassaway said that Morales was looking into SafeQuest’s performance but then left the city. Since then, the city has been short-staffed and looking into the lease has not been a priority, according to Gassaway.

SafeQuest sought expansion, despite operating well below capacity

Chanhsy, who saw Paschal at the Fairfield safe house, left SafeQuest near the end of 2021. She said she watched other dedicated advocates leave during the three years she worked with the organization and she wondered to herself why she was still there. The Fairfield house was still closed when she left, she said.

“Sometimes we don't get paid, sometimes we do, and if we do, I feel guilty,” she said. “You're just here to show dedication and do what you need to do to help the community, but you're under the guidance of someone that's not doing things the adequate way.”

The safe house’s position with the city remains in limbo, but it reportedly saw some use by survivors last year. One former employee said that she was aware that the Fairfield house had reopened sometime in 2022, but did not know the extent it was being used.

But despite SafeQuest’s struggles to provide services, it sought to expand its footprint in the county last year. In January 2022, the city of Benicia applied for federal American Rescue Plan Act funds from Solano County to renovate or build a city-owned transitional housing facility that SafeQuest Solano would operate. More than a year later, the proposal remained under consideration, but the Solano County Board of Supervisors chose to allocate its ARPA funds for other projects.

“SafeQuest offers survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking and their children with 24-hour support, on-site supervision, and basic needs,” the application stated. “With these services from SafeQuest and other support, the residents of the Benicia house will be able to achieve stability and have support to successfully move on to permanent housing and self-sufficiency.”