Statements regarding Lana Jacobs' departure from St. Francis House

The following statements were released by officials with St. Francis House on Wednesday morning:

Dear Friends of St. Francis House and Loaves & Fishes;

The St. Francis Catholic Worker community would like to thank you for your generous gifts of time, talent and treasure over the past 23+ years.

Without your help, we could not operate Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen, St. Francis House for homeless men, or the Lois Bryant House for homeless women for as long as we have. It is with deep sadness that we must share the following disturbing information with you.

We recently learned that some of your generous financial donations have been used for purposes other than they were intended. As a result, Lana Jacobs, the person who was in charge of financial matters, and who is solely responsible for the misuse of funds, has left our Catholic Worker community.

She is no longer affiliated with the St. Francis Catholic Worker. These events have left us reeling, because our most visible and trusted community member repeatedly lied and concealed her improper financial activities from us. We are still trying to determine the scope of the misuse of funds as we prepare a plan for making things right. We obviously placed too much trust in Lana, our friend and family member. Sadly, she betrayed our trust, and we apologize to you for not providing greater oversight of her actions.

In early October, 2007, our community became aware that monthly utility bills and other expenses were not being paid. Lana told us that donations were down and bills were outstanding, but we did not realize the extent of the problem. Upon investigation, we discovered that donated funds were not being used to pay ongoing expenses, resulting in several disconnect notices. We confronted Lana about these overdue bills, and she stated that the money was not used for her personal benefit, but that she had helped others in need by paying their rent, utility bills, and other assistance. No other community member had agreed to this use of funds, especially since there was not enough left over to pay our own necessary expenses. Initially, we believed that these problems stemmed from Lana being chronically stressed from overwork and too willing to help friends in need. In late October, we removed her access to known bank accounts, and shifted financial responsibilities to community members Rachael Krall and Ruth O’Neill.

Through your generous donations during the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons, we were able to make up the arrearages on our mortgage and utility accounts, pay our insurance and property taxes, and address other debts. We thought we had gotten a handle on the problem, but were shocked to discover that the improper financial dealings were much more widespread than we believed. In late December we learned that, in 2005, without our knowledge or consent, Lana took out a loan using our women’s house as collateral. To obtain this loan, she engaged in fraudulent real estate transactions that made it appear that Lois Bryant House was titled as her private property. We also discovered that she had secretly opened other bank accounts, which were not turned over to Rachael and Ruth, and that she had made unauthorized transfers of funds between accounts. In light of these discoveries, we began to collect records in anticipation of an audit of all known accounts, and to search for other missing funds.

We plan to engage an independent financial expert to help us learn the scope of Lana’s misuse of funds and correct our financial situation. We plan to make our operations more transparent to us and to you, our friends and supporters. Lana continues to claim that she received no financial gain as a result of her actions. Unfortunately, our trust in her has been destroyed. We pray that we have not similarly destroyed your trust in us. We hoped to have a firm handle on the extent of our financial problems before coming to you, but we have reached a point where we could no longer delay making you aware of this situation.

Please do not send any donations in care of Lana Jacobs or to any previous address you may have. Please address all correspondence to Ruth O’Neill, 1001 Rangeline St. Columbia, MO 65201. Feel free to call if you need additional information. However, be aware that telephone number 573-881-1816 is no longer affiliated with the St. Francis Catholic Worker. You can call Steve Jacobs at 573-875-4913, or Ruth at 573-443-1927.

We ask for your understanding, your patience and your prayers as we sort through this situation and seek a way to keep providing hospitality to people in need. We hope to be able to continue providing a home for several mentally ill persons in our care who have no where else to turn. We hope to continue to help our wonderful volunteers feed the hungry at Loaves & Fishes each night.

We are deeply sorry to have broken faith with you by failing to oversee Lana’s handling of our finances. We will work hard to restore your faith in us; we pray we are up to the challenge. God bless you.

Sincerely,

The St Francis Catholic Worker Community, Columbia, Missouri

Steve Jacobs, Rachael Krall, Jeff Krall, Ruth O’Neill, Missy Parker,

Jerry Finkle and Dahne Yeager

Statement from St. Francis House Catholic Worker member, Steve Jacobs:

Over the last 3 months we discovered that donations acquired to serve the homeless and the poor of Columbia that were entrusted to us were misused and spent without the authorization of the members of the St. Francis community. The tragedy for us here is that the person who did this, Lana Jacobs, is the wife of one member and the mother to another member of the St. Francis House community. And while we still care and love our fallen sister, Lana, we feel our allegiance to the truth must transcend any family ties. So we decided to break this news to our donors, volunteers and supporters first before issuing any statements to the media. But now that time has come.

We have spent the last week personally apologizing to clergy and close supporters of our work and sending apologies and an explanation to hundreds of those whom we didn't have time to visit personally. We apologize to any who we missed before this hit the media but there are many more people who work to help us serve the poor here than the seven of us who remain in the core St. Francis House community.

Lana has moved to St. Louis and is no longer a St. Francis Catholic Worker.

We are still gathering information on how funds were misspent and misused. A special account for finishing construction on an addition to St. Francis House has been depleted. As to the amount of missing and unaccounted for funds; $20 to 40 thousand and possibly more. We don't know yet where that money went.

We have been in contact with the Columbia city prosecutor and the police about gathering and providing evidence of fraud and theft. We discovered that donations were being solicited by Lana and diverted to a PO Box without our knowledge after she had been removed from having access to our records and bank accounts.

We have met with and will continue to seek the guidance of persons advising us on financial record keeping of our accounts so that our books will be open and transparent for any of our donors and supporters.

We are people who believe in accountability and but we also believe in redemption. We hope Lana, our wife, our mother and our former community member will get the counsel and assistance she needs to heal and to atone for her mistakes. I will send a copy of the apology and explanation that we sent to donors in a subsequent media release directly.

Steve Jacobs for the St. Francis House

Catholic Worker community