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CFR Investigation Team
A Chicago Flips Red investigation identified $246 million in public funds flowing to a network of three connected entities: a South Side nonprofit, a suburban developer, and a Puerto Rican cultural organization. The money moved through city contracts, TIF subsidies, tax credit structures, and federal grant programs. The records are all public. Until now, no one had aggregated them.
The nonprofit — K.L.E.O. Community Family Life Center — had $44,000 in cash and negative net assets when the city sold it two parcels appraised at $925,000 for $2. KLEO immediately transferred the land to Brinshore Development, a suburban firm registered at 666 Dundee Road in Northbrook. That transaction generated Illinois Donation Tax Credits on top of $6.35 million in TIF subsidies. KLEO has since received $139.7 million in city contracts, nearly all for migrant shelter operations.
Twelve LLCs registered at Brinshore's Northbrook headquarters collected an additional $60 million. Brinshore also entered a 50/50 joint venture with the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, splitting a $925,560 developer fee on a $14.4 million building project that City Council approved 50–0. The Puerto Rican Cultural Center, operating under four separate vendor IDs in the city's contracting system, has received $46.7 million — 71% of it designated for HIV services.
K.L.E.O. Community Family Life Center describes itself as "eradicating violence by bringing opportunity through arts, culture, workforce development, and STEM education." Until 2023, that mission matched its budget: roughly $1–2 million per year in city contracts for summer youth employment and after-school programs on Chicago's South Side.
Beginning in 2024, KLEO's contract awards increased dramatically as the organization took on migrant shelter operations.
The contracts are ARP-funded Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) awards — federal dollars administered through FEMA and United Way for migrant shelter operations. No major Chicago news outlet has published an in-depth investigation of KLEO's shelter operations, despite the organization receiving more city money in 2025 than most city departments.
A single KLEO contract — PO# 296396, covering January through June 2025 — is worth $62.335 million. The executed contract document lists the scope of work as "Processed as a Release Package." The budget section reads the same. Both the deliverables and the spending plan are deferred to documents not attached to the contract.
This pattern is not unique to the shelter deal. KLEO's youth services contract ($718,896), its summer employment contract — every KLEO contract we obtained follows the same structure. Scope of work: processed as a release package. Budget: processed as a release package. Program Director Erin Cross signed the Economic Disclosure Statements on all of them.
| Year | Contract Total | Contracts |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $665,603 | 5 |
| 2021 | $137,390 | 4 |
| 2022 | $2,154,624 | 4 |
| 2023 | $1,080,372 | 3 |
| 2024 | $14,766,493 | 6 |
| 2025 | $117,422,931 | 14 |
| 2026 | $3,513,125 | 1 |
| Total | $139,740,538 |
Source: Chicago Data Portal, Contracts dataset (rsxa-ify5). Amounts reflect award totals per calendar year.
In 2021, KLEO received $137,000 from the city of Chicago. In 2025, it received $117.4 million — an approximately 855-fold increase in four years. KLEO's own website claims 2,915 people received shelter and 1,800 transitioned to stable housing. At $139.7 million in total contract value, that works out to roughly $47,900 per person sheltered or $77,600 per person transitioned to stable housing.
KLEO's IRS Form 990 for 2022 — the last full filing before the budget increase — shows an organization that functioned primarily as a pass-through:
KLEO retained roughly $8,000 of its $1.82 million in program spending for its own operations. The remainder was passed through. The 990 does not identify the recipients.
KLEO's role in this network predates the migrant crisis. In 2017, Mayor Rahm Emanuel personally sponsored Ordinance O2017-6806 — a redevelopment agreement for the Brin Life Center, a 58-unit housing project on Chicago's South Side.
The deal:
The land was not conveyed directly to the developer. It was routed through KLEO:
"K.L.E.O. Community Family Life Center...desires to purchase certain vacant, City-owned parcels...for the sum of Two and 00/100 Dollars ($2.00)..."
"KLEO proposes to immediately reconvey the City Property to the Developer, or an affiliate thereof"
KLEO purchased the land for $2 and immediately transferred it to Brin Life Center LLC — a Brinshore Development entity registered at 666 Dundee Road, Northbrook. This structure triggers Illinois Donation Tax Credits: the city conveys land to a nonprofit, which passes it to the developer, generating additional tax benefits on top of the TIF subsidy.
The Brin Life Center was presented as affordable housing. The $7.275 million in city subsidies funded the following:
At $125,431 per unit in city subsidy, the per-unit cost is within normal ranges — provided the units are genuinely affordable. The contract terms, however, limit actual affordability:
Cost per actually income-restricted unit: $606,250 — more than the median home price in Chicago.
A search of Chicago's public contracts database for vendors registered at 666 Dundee Road, Northbrook — the corporate headquarters of Brinshore Development — returned twelve separate entities collecting city money.
Total: approximately $60 million from a single address.
Brinshore Development was founded in 1994 by David Brint and Richard Sciortino. It is the 16th largest affordable housing developer in the United States, with $4.8 billion in assets under management across 16 states. Brint was also a vice president at Rezmar Corporation — the company run by Antoin "Tony" Rezko. According to a 2007 Chicago Sun-Times investigation, Brint cold-called a young Barack Obama and arranged for him to meet Rezko, the political fundraiser later convicted on federal corruption charges during the Blagojevich administration. Source
The largest contracts are tied to Chicago's most politically sensitive public housing redevelopments: Robert Taylor Homes, ABLA Homes, and Park Douglas. In affordable housing development, project-specific LLCs are standard — federal tax credit rules require separate entities for each project. The structure itself is normal. What warrants scrutiny is what's inside it: contract terms stretching 30 to 42 years, pass-through arrangements that generate tax credits on top of direct subsidies, and a network of entities whose connections to each other are not visible in the city's public contracting data unless you search by address.
| Entity | Amount | Project | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dearborn Root, LP | $9,480,000 | Robert Taylor Homes | 2006–2025 |
| Paseo Boricua Arts LLC | $8,440,000 | Artist Housing | 2021–2061 |
| Ogden North LLC | $8,290,000 | Park Douglas Phase I | 2010–2052 |
| Westhaven Park Phase-IIB | $7,250,000 | ABLA Homes site | 2006–2025 |
| Brinshore Development | $6,690,000 | Park Place Family | 2015–2045 |
| Brin Life Center | $6,350,000 | (No description) | 2017–2049 |
| Hairpin Lofts LLC | $5,940,000 | 2800 N. Milwaukee | 2010–2024 |
| McCrory Senior Apts | $4,100,000 | Mayfair Commons | 2017–2042 |
| WHP Homes, LLC | $2,500,000 | Redevelopment Agreement | 2005–2024 |
| Hairpin Retail LLC | $1,210,000 | 2800 N. Milwaukee Retail | 2010–2024 |
| Park Apartments LP | $180,000 | Energy Retrofit | 2009–2010 |
| South Park Apartments LP | $63,000 | Energy Retrofit | 2009 |
| Total | $60,493,000 |
Source: Chicago Data Portal. All entities registered at 666 Dundee Road, Northbrook, IL — corporate headquarters of Brinshore Development.
One of those twelve entities — Paseo Boricua Arts LLC — is not solely a Brinshore project. City Council Ordinance O2020-5748, passed unanimously in December 2020, lays out the ownership structure.
Paseo Boricua Arts LLC is a 50/50 joint venture between PRCC and Brinshore. They split control and the $925,560 developer fee. The tax credit investor — Richman Affordable Housing Corporation — holds the paper stake. City Council approved the arrangement 50–0.
The project is a five-story mixed-use building at 2709–2715 West Division Street, directly adjacent to PRCC's cluster of offices. It includes twenty-four affordable apartments, a black box theater, commercial space, and community space. Total development cost: $14.4 million, funded by a JPMorgan Chase revenue bond (up to $12 million), $4.2 million in TIF funds, $2.2 million from the Illinois Housing Development Authority, and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit syndication proceeds.
Juan Calderón — PRCC's Chief Operations Officer, who also signs PRCC's HIV contracts — is listed as the contact person on PRCC's Economic Disclosure Statement for the Paseo Boricua Arts deal.
The Puerto Rican Cultural Center appears in Chicago's contracts database under four separate vendor identification numbers:
Combined: $46.7 million across 338 contract awards.
All four vendor IDs trace to a single organization with a single IRS Employer Identification Number (EIN 23-7347778). PRCC's affiliates — including Vida/SIDA, Batey Urbano, and the Pedro Albizu Campos High School — all operate under this one EIN. Yet in the city's contracting system, the organization appears as four separate vendors, making it difficult for auditors to see the full scope of funding flowing to a single entity.
Every one of these contracts, from 2015 to 2025, bears the same three signatures. José E. López, Executive Director. Lisette Fuentes, Chief Financial Officer. Juan Calderón, Chief Operations Officer. The same three individuals have controlled $46.7 million in public funds over a decade with no leadership turnover.
PRCC's 2022 Form 990 reports $9.77 million in revenue, $8.93 million in expenses, and 484 employees. Ninety-five percent of revenue comes from grants — overwhelmingly government grants. PRCC's 2023 independent audit found a material weakness in internal controls — the most serious category of accounting deficiency an auditor can report.
The 990 filings also contain a disclosure gap. Part VII — which requires listing officer and director compensation — shows all seven board members at $0 compensation and 1 hour per week. Yet Part IX reports $358,050 in officer compensation. The prior year's filing listed COO Juan Calderon at $150,764 in Part VII; he does not appear in the 2022 disclosure. The 990 does not identify who received the $358,050.
PRCC's 2019 HIV Prevention contract — $1.4 million over three years to recruit twenty Latino gay men for focus groups — lists the agency contact email as erikg@chiblackgaycaucus.org. That is the email domain of the Chicago Black Gay Men's Caucus, a separate organization. The contract does not explain why another organization's email appears as PRCC's contact.
A breakdown of PRCC's 338 contracts by program category shows that the majority of funding is concentrated in a single area:
Seventy-one percent of PRCC's city funding — $33.3 million — is designated for HIV services. This includes housing for people with HIV, prevention programs, and Ryan White healthcare and food delivery for HIV-positive individuals.
The following is based on our review of the contract documents.
Housing: PRCC's HOPWA Facility-Based Housing contract serves nine unduplicated clients in twelve beds. At $148 per day, the total contract value is $682,752 — to house HIV-positive Latino individuals ages 18–24 in apartments on Division Street.
Prevention (Gay Business Initiative): PRCC's HIV Prevention contracts, classified as "Community Development," fund an entrepreneurship program run by Project Director Ricardo Jimenez out of Vida/SIDA at 2640 W. Division Street. Fifteen participants receive entrepreneurial coaching via Zoom, access to a "Queer Market," and monthly peer support groups. Special events include Haunted Paseo, Pride, Puerto Rican People's Day, and Three Kings Day. The HIV prevention component consists of weekly wellness check-in calls and PrEP referrals. This program is in its seventh year. At $287,500 per year for fifteen people, the cost is $19,167 per participant for Zoom-based business coaching with HIV referrals.
Rehabilitation: Of PRCC's $17.3 million in HOPWA contracts, $10.2 million is classified as "Rehabilitation of Facilities." The largest single contract — PO# 182093, worth $2.64 million — requires PRCC to rehabilitate a minimum of fifteen facilities per year. The contract does not name a single one of them. PRCC hires its own architect, its own construction specialist, and its own subcontractors. It conducts its own facility assessments. It then, per the contract language, "subcontracts with contractor or Trades People and ensures the approved work is done." PRCC controls at least eight properties within a four-block radius of its headquarters. Whether any of those properties are among the fifteen facilities renovated annually with HOPWA funds is not disclosed in the contract documents we reviewed.
Seventy-one percent of PRCC's city funding — $33.3 million — goes to HIV services. The following details are drawn from the contract documents.
PRCC controls properties at at least eight addresses on Division Street: 2379, 2546, 2556, 2559, 2615, 2640, 2703, and 2739 West Division — all within a four-block stretch. Its 50/50 joint venture with Brinshore sits at 2709–2715 West Division, directly adjacent.
In 2022, the city gave PRCC a $75,000 Small Business Resiliency Grant to renovate 2559 W. Division Street — one of the addresses in that cluster. The improvements included electrical upgrades, Herman Miller office furniture, interior and exterior planters, and outdoor building murals. Listed as "business center improvements."
Every PRCC contract for the past decade bears three signatures: José E. López, Executive Director. Lisette Fuentes, Chief Financial Officer. And Juan M. Calderón Cuza, Chief Operations Officer.
Calderón is also a registered City of Chicago lobbyist for PRCC — Lobbyist ID 24632, registered in 2024. His registration lists six city departments he lobbies on PRCC's behalf: the Mayor's Office, City Council, Department of Public Health, Department of Housing, Department of Family and Support Services, and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. These are the same departments that award PRCC's contracts.
His lobbying activity filings with the City of Chicago describe the subjects of his lobbying as "FUNDS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC HEALTH, HOUSING" and "ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING" — directed at the Mayor's Office, City Council, and Legislative Council in Q3 and Q4 of 2022. His registration states he receives no compensation for lobbying. He does it as part of his role at PRCC. His registration references a Board of Ethics waiver letter dated 2024; the contents of that waiver are not publicly available.
Calderón lives at 2615 W. Division Street — per both his lobbyist registration and a separate Chicago Electoral Board filing (Case 23-EB-ALD-040). That building is owned by PRCC. Cook County property records show PRCC purchased 2615 W. Division St (PIN 16014010500000) on March 30, 2021 for $589,000, via warranty deed from seller Nelson Gines.
In 2023, Calderón filed that Electoral Board objection to challenge the nomination papers of Julian Perez in the 26th Ward aldermanic race. The challenge was unsuccessful — Perez ran and lost. The candidate who won that race was Jessie Fuentes — PRCC's own Director of Policy and Youth Advocacy.
The 26th Ward — Humboldt Park — has been represented by PRCC-aligned aldermen for over thirty years. Luis Gutiérrez held the seat before going to Congress in 1993. Billy Ocasio succeeded him. Roberto Maldonado followed, serving from 2009 to 2023. Block Club Chicago described José López as "Maldonado's close ally." When Maldonado stepped aside in January 2023, he endorsed Fuentes. López personally backed her candidacy.
Fuentes had transferred to PRCC's own Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School at 2739 W. Division Street as a student, later served as dean of students there, and moved directly from PRCC's payroll to the campaign trail. She won with 55.6% of the vote, avoiding a runoff. She now holds aldermanic authority over the ward where PRCC operates $46.7 million in city contracts — contracts signed by the same organization that educated her, employed her, and whose COO attempted to clear her path to office.
As alderman, Fuentes was appointed to three committees directly relevant to PRCC's taxpayer grift portfolio: Health and Human Relations, which oversees the HOPWA and Ryan White programs that account for 71% of PRCC's funding; Housing and Real Estate, which governs TIF subsidies and affordable housing deals like the Paseo Boricua Arts project; and Zoning, which controls development along the Division Street corridor where PRCC operates.
Calderón signs $46.7 million in city contracts, lobbies the departments that award them, and lives in a building PRCC purchased with revenue that is 95% government grants.
New HIV diagnoses have declined significantly since this infrastructure was built. The infrastructure has not scaled down — it has scaled up. Chicago is the seventh-largest HOPWA recipient in the nation at $12.8 million per year. The central question is whether $33.3 million in HIV-designated funding is being used for HIV services.
PRCC's stated mission, per its 990, centers on "self-determination" for Chicago's Puerto Rican community. The organization is named after Juan Antonio Corretjer, a leader of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party who was charged with sedition in 1936 and later founded the Liga Socialista Puertorriqueña. Corretjer advocated armed struggle for Puerto Rican independence throughout his life.
PRCC's Executive Director is José E. López. His brother Oscar López Rivera co-founded PRCC and served 36 years in federal prison — longer than any other member of the FALN. The FALN — the Marxist-Leninist paramilitary organization Oscar joined — carried out more than 130 bombings on U.S. soil between 1974 and 1983, including the 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing that killed four people. Oscar López Rivera was convicted of seditious conspiracy; his sentence was commuted by President Obama in 2017.
Former U.S. Congressman Luis Gutiérrez, a longtime PRCC ally, publicly advocated for the release of convicted FALN members — individuals PRCC refers to as "political prisoners." Executive Director José López regularly appears before the United Nations Decolonization Committee to advocate for Puerto Rican independence from the United States.
PRCC describes its work as "self-determination." The more precise term is separatism. The organization is named after a man charged with sedition, was co-founded by a man convicted of seditious conspiracy, and has received $46.7 million from the government Oscar López Rivera was convicted of conspiring to overthrow. Its founders — Corretjer a socialist, Oscar López Rivera a member of a Marxist-Leninist paramilitary organization — built the institutional framework that now administers those funds.
In November 2025, Brinshore listed 20 Chicago properties containing 2,435 apartment units for sale, including 695 units subsidized by the Chicago Housing Authority. In its offering materials, the company described CHA as being "in constant state of default," citing missed payments stretching more than 12 months.
The contracts — with their 30- and 40-year terms — remain in force. When a developer exits, someone inherits those obligations: property management, compliance requirements, affordable housing covenants. The 2,435 tenants living in those units do not get to choose their new landlord.
Every line on this diagram represents a documented connection — money, contracts, lobbying, property, or personnel. Juan Calderón connects to seven of them. He signs the contracts, lobbies the departments that award them, and lives in a building his employer purchased with government grant revenue.
The system documented in this investigation uses tax revenue — funded in large part by property taxes on homeowners and renters — to build housing that costs more per unit than most Chicagoans will ever pay for a home. The Brin Life Center's actually income-restricted units cost $606,250 each in city subsidies. The money flows through nonprofits with negative net worth and 99% pass-through rates, into the hands of connected developers who lock the city into 40-year contracts and then leave town.
Chicago Flips Red's founder Zoe Leigh has seen the other end of this system. The city demolished her family's home — the house her mother planned to pass down — for a Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation affordable housing project. Her mother fought the demolition in court long enough to shift the project across the street. They are currently homeless. The property went to the developer. The house is gone. The affordable housing machine taxes homeowners, seizes their property, and produces units at six times the cost of what it destroyed.
In Minnesota, $250 million in federal food program funds flowed through community nonprofits in what became the Feeding Our Future scandal. Dozens have been convicted. The U.S. Treasury is investigating whether some of those funds reached al-Shabaab. The mechanism was the same: pass-through organizations, vague deliverables, minimal oversight. The question is not whether Chicago's network is criminal. The question is whether anyone is conducting oversight.
Every dollar traced in this investigation is a public dollar. Every record is a public record. No public accounting of the aggregate has been conducted until now.
Source documents:
File a FOIA request with the City of Chicago for any contracts mentioned in this article. You can submit requests through the city's FOIA portal.
Contact your alderman and ask about oversight of these contracts.
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