Nonprofit CEO responds after audit flags Vegas conference trip expenses

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The leader of a nonprofit that was part of a critical audit of a state housing initiative is responding to questions.

It comes as some lawmakers demand answers to what they call questionable spending.

The auditor looked at the Statewide Office on Homelessness and Housing Solutions — and Gov. Josh Green’s Kauhale Initiative, tiny homes built under his emergency proclamations to ease the homeless crisis.

One part of the expansive audit: a $5,200 state reimbursement for a 2024 Vegas trip for a conference to the CEO of HomeAid, contracted to build kauhale.

It included a first-class airline upgrade, charges from the minibar and two $50 sexual intimacy kits — expenses which the auditor said are not allowed.

“The moment this surfaced, we took immediate action. We ensured that at the end, taxpayers did not bear the cost of this, and it has since already been corrected,” said HomeAid CEO Kimo Carvalho.

“My understanding is the Kauhale initiative is about $188 million in total,” he added. “HomeAid contracts total $39.9 million. We’re talking about $100 out of that total. I do think that this is being overly blown and sensationalized.”

“I thought someone made something up. I thought it can’t be possibly true. This is a joke, right? But it’s not a joke; it’s actually in the audit,” said state Rep. Elle Cochran, R-Lahaina, Olowalu, Kapalua.

Carvalho said that as part of a financial reconciliation process, he paid roughly $17,982 back to HomeAid and got $6,465 back in expenses that he paid for on behalf of the state.

Green said he wants people to focus on the bigger picture: that his kauhale projects have helped 2,900 people — and saved 100 million dollars in visits to the emergency room by Hawaii’s homeless.

“We are saving over $50,000 per person per year just by getting a roof over someone’s head. That’s why you do the project. The audit was unable to see that. It was only looking at mistakes perhaps that were made which have been fixed,” said Green.

HNN political analyst Colin Moore said, “I thought someone is having a very bad day.”

“To me that’s one of the most troubling things about this is that most people who are on a government-sponsored trip know that they have to be very, very careful about what’s a personal expense, what’s a public expense, putting things on their own credit cards,” he added.

Carvalho talked about lessons learned.

“One of the biggest lessons learned for me personally is I need to be in the weeds as much as I need to be in the high-level operations,” he said.

State House leaders are reviewing the audit.