Patti's Fundraising May Not Save 100-Year-Old Shelter

CAROL MARIN and DON MOSELEY Chicago Sun Times
   
Patti Blagojevich is the fundraiser for the Christian Industrial League, a 99-year-old homeless shelter and outreach center, but it remains in dire financial straits and has even discussed the possibility of bankruptcy. Every Monday through Friday Illinois First Lady Patti Blagojevich arrives at the Chicago Christian Industrial League to raise money to help the city's most needy citizens. Hired last September, she works out of a small office in the League's brand new facility in North Lawndale. The First Lady has not spoken publicly since her husband, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, was arrested by the FBI on corruption charges on December 9, 2008. She agreed to be photographed but declined to speak to both NBC Chicago and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Patti Blagojevich was hired as a fundraiser for the 99-year-old institution, but an investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times and NBC Chicago shows the Christian Industrial League is in dire financial trouble and that internally, the Board members have discussed the possibility of bankruptcy. According to the Christian Industrial League's interim executive director, Mary Shaver, private funding has dropped, federal HUD money has been lost and the facility is now only half full. Many of the financial problems can be traced back to when the Christian Industrial League moved from its home in Greektown to a plot on Roosevelt Road.

The new $25 million state-of-the-art shelter opened in 2006. It provides food for the hungry, beds for the homeless, and job training for the willing. For 97 years, the Christian Industrial League was located in Chicago's Greektown neighborhood, an area that in the last decade has become prime real estate.

Today condos selling for more than a half a million dollars sit on the old site. Among the condo developers are two politically powerful and well-connected businessmen. Michael Marchese is one of Mayor Richard Daley's closest friends. William Cellini is a Springfield multi-millionaire indicted in the ongoing pay-to-play federal investigation.

An investigation by Chicago Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak shows that taxpayers of the City of Chicago paid $13.5 million to facilitate the Christian Industrial League's 2006 move from Greektown to North Lawndale. And with that move the Marchese-Cellini team was free to begin building.

The Christian Industrial League was ready to move after nearly a century at the old site. "The buildings were falling down around us," Shaver said. But trouble was already looming, according to documents obtained by the Sun-Times.

Memos written by officials inside City Hall and the Christian Industrial League warned the mayor's office that costs associated with the move were out of control. "There's a four year trail that shows the Christian Industrial League never had any money to fund its share of the building," according to Sun Times reporter Tim Novak, "which is why they ended up hiring Patti Blagojevich."...........

She is failing at her job, the place is going bankrupt but she still gets paid. The city pays for them to tear down the old building and move so fat cats one of them charged with extortion, can build condos.