A Chicago AIDS charity has been ordered to return a $500,000 state grant it received to rehabilitate a South Side apartment building, amid questions about the group's spending.We've posted another story related to this rehab back in September.
The legal judgment obtained by the Illinois Commerce and Economic Opportunity Department and announced Friday, comes in the wake of Chicago Sun-Times stories outlining the Let's Talk, Let's Test Foundation's financial struggles and failure to complete the apartment project, which was meant to help fund AIDS-education efforts.
State officials said the foundation -- created in 2002 by state Rep. Connie Howard (D-Chicago) in an effort to stem the spread of AIDS in African-American neighborhoods -- hasn't finished the project and didn't "disclose the complete nature of all grant-fund expenses."
Separately, Illinois Public Health Department lawyers plan to try to recover $523,545 more from the organization, based on questionable expenses they say it made after getting a separate, $1.2 million AIDS-awareness grant. A court-style hearing in which the foundation would be allowed to defend its spending should be opened in the "very near future," and a judge would decide if the money was misspent, a health department spokeswoman said.
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