Yesterday, the Chicago Sun Times reported that Gov. Pat Quinn’s “scandal-tainted” Neighborhood Recovery Initiative is yet again embroiled in scandal.
Here was the idea: help re-integrate freed teen and young adult prison inmates back into society. The Sun Times called it “a noble idea,” but the program took more than $15,000 over 3 months and never actually existed:
The nonprofit that the state paid with anti-violence grant money to handle re-entry services in Thornton Township actually was operating out of a day care center in south suburban Dixmoor.
On top of that, it was later learned, there was really no re-entry program at all — nor any proof that the organization, Project Hope, Inc., did anything for the $15,770 it received from Quinn’s administration to perform re-entry services, state records show.
Gov. Pat Quinn sent taxpayer dollars to a project and failed to see it through. The result is a massive lose-lose, as taxpayer dollars have been wasted and Illinois kids who genuinely needed help never got what they were promised.