The Gazette reports that several formerly homeless people involved in an Aurora-based enterprise known as “The Program” said they were pressured to sign nondisclosure agreements just days before Medicaid suspended the connected home-health agency amid investigations into alleged fraud. The article says participants described being promised free housing and cash in exchange for letting a home-health business administer prescribed medications, while On Going Home Health Care has reportedly received at least $24 million in Medicaid dollars since it began.
This all stinks to absolute high heaven. We have all heard about waste, fraud, and abuse. We suspected it was happening here in Colorado. Then we read stories like this, and the suspicion walks in wearing boots, tracking mud across the living room.
The Bullet Point Brief
- At least four participants told The Gazette they were threatened with eviction if they did not sign NDAs. They said they signed, and they knew others who did too. That is not client privacy. That is a smoke alarm with a legal department.
- “The Program” reportedly operated in about a half-dozen homes across eastern Aurora, each with about eight residents. The setup allegedly involved homeless recruits, free housing, gift cards, medications, a home-health agency, a church, and another housing-related business. If your compassion model needs a flowchart and a subpoena, something is off.
- Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy and Financing suspended On Going Home Health Care from Medicaid, citing “credible allegations of fraud,” after Gazette reporting triggered investigations. That suspension stays in place while the investigation continues.
- The article says investigations involve HCPF, the FBI, and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Good. Now follow the money until the paper trail starts sweating.
- Gov. Jared Polis’ office said the state takes waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money seriously. Wonderful. Taxpayers would like that sentence converted into audits, subpoenas, recovered money, and actual consequences if the facts prove out.
My Bottom Line
This is a Colorado grift story first. It is not a generic homelessness story, and it should not be used to take cheap shots at people living on the edge. The punch goes upward.
The vulnerable people in this story appear to have been treated like revenue units by operators fluent in compassion jargon. If the reporting proves out, homeless people were offered housing and cash, routed through a Medicaid-funded setup, and then told to keep quiet right as investigators started sniffing around. That is not compassion. That is paperwork wearing a mask.
And yes, it is infuriating. The average family cannot afford groceries, rent, insurance, child care, gas, or another cheerful tax increase from someone with a ribbon-cutting smile. Yet stories like this make taxpayers feel like chumps. Why the hell do we even pay taxes when this kind of crap goes on? Wait, we know. They will bust us if we do not.
That is the moral rot here. Government forcibly passes the hat, builds giant programs, hands out billions through systems most people cannot understand, and then acts shocked when operators find the maze profitable. Homelessness funding, Medicaid billing, nonprofit-business hybrids, housing arrangements, gift cards, eligibility rules, and agency oversight all start blending into one big taxpayer-funded fog bank.
Colorado does not need another press conference about caring. It needs names, timelines, audits, subpoenas, billing records, license reviews, recovered dollars, and consequences. Who funded this? Who approved it? Who monitored it? Who billed Medicaid? Who benefited? Who looked away?
And if the facts prove fraud, then the answer cannot be a sternly worded statement and a new committee with snacks. It has to be prosecution, repayment, disqualification from public programs, and a warning to the whole professional rescue industry: vulnerable people are not billing codes, and taxpayers are not chumps with direct deposit.
Source: The Gazette
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