For nearly 40 years, The Alliance ushered people from across the world into Houston. The nonprofit welcomed refugees with food, clothing, furniture, rent money, job training, language classes and financial coaching.
Then, one day in June, the organization suddenly vanished.
A new investigation by the Houston Chronicle, however, finds the nonprofit’s disappearance wasn’t unexpected for those who ran it. For at least a decade, it had overspent, under-fundraised and misused federal grants, according to records kept by its governing board.
Andrea Ball, an investigative reporter at the Chronicle, said the organization was founded by refugee groups in the Houston area.
“They basically welcomed people into Houston by giving them lots of services,” she said. “Anything from how to get an apartment and how to help them (with job searches) and that sort of thing.”
In October 2023, the board conducted an internal investigation into the organization’s money woes.
“Essentially they ran out of money,” Ball said. “They had essentially been spending too much on staff and building expenses and other such things. And the money that they were supposed to be using for services they ended up using for things they weren’t supposed to.”
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The investigation concluded after The Alliance reached a settlement with the CEO at the time, Dan Stoecker, who had been put on administrative leave.
Ball said it is still unclear if the organization misused federal or state grants in a way that will cause retribution.
“It’s possible in any type of situation that the city or the federal government could come in and say, ‘I don’t think you spent the money. So we’re going to launch an investigation and we’re going to see how you spent it and [see] if it was misspent into the organization or if you essentially bought a new pool,’” Ball said. “So then that could happen. But we have no indication that it is happening.”
The Alliance’s closure, meanwhile, has left a vacuum in refugee services in Houston.
“Some of the people who were getting services from the Alliance were picked up by other refugee groups,” Ball said. “But when we went out and spoke to the community, there were people who said ‘I couldn’t get in touch with them, I didn’t get the money I thought that I was going to get for my rent. I didn’t get my English classes. I didn’t get these things.’
There was no good transition. So people are still trying to figure it out.”