Investigating Hadassah Robeson’s Gan Rivkah Center Part 4: Failed Landlord, Failed Daycare Center, Money Rolls In, State Rep And Senator Help Out

 

To catch up on this series make sure you read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 first.

As discussed in Part 3 of this series, the funding for Hadassah Robeson’s Gan Rivkah Center allegedly from three places:

  1. Rent from residents
  2. Profits from her two businesses
  3. Donations

This blog will delve into the donations, the primary source of income for the GRC. There are so many donations that it actually requires two blogs to explain, so that’s what parts 4 and 5 will be dedicated to.

The problem is that according to her bank statements the business doesn’t make any money and its bills are paid for by the GRC account. She also uses the GRC Facebook page to promote and sell items from Trinkets and Treasures.

If people knew ahead of time that donations made to the GRC go towards funding her privately owned business, and that her adult children live in the shelter for free while residents are forced to pay rent, they would be less likely to donate. Hadassah is banking on the fact that people and businesses who would be apt to donate will see a homeless shelter and write a check without looking into where the money is going, and she’s been doing this for years.

This is why keeping records is so important for non-profits. The GRC has not filed their 990 forms, which is required for a registered 501c3, in 2017 or 2018. When I asked her about this she told me it was because the GRC doesn’t make enough money so she doesn’t have to file her taxes. However, she told me she would look into it.

If the GRC was getting government grants then the government could audit her, like they did to the Mosaic Cultural Complex in 2016. But since they get all of their money from residents and private donors the government does nothing.

That doesn’t stop Hadassah from getting money though. She has claimed on several occasions that she doesn’t go around asking for donations, but that’s not true. Hadassah is constantly asking for donations.

Note that the date the shelter opens changes all the time. It was originally incorporated in 2013, but she claims they’ve had over 2,000 families since 2007.

As discussed in Part 1, she gets significant help from the Milford Daily News, which has shared links to her GoFundMe.

The MDN, which has done so much to assist Hadassah with this money making machine, has been completely silent since we started publishing these blogs. Likely because they feel it is beneath them to admit that they read TB Daily News. Here’s a link to their contact information. Feel free to ask them why they’re not covering this now.

Hadassah has told several different stories about the nexus of the GRC. In her interview on My FM 101.3 she claimed that she intended on renting the house out for $2,800 a month, but instead allowed a homeless woman to stay with her years ago and decided to turn it into a shelter.

Hadassah always paints herself as virtuous and willing to sacrifice for the greater good, so giving up $2,800 in rent every month is in line with that.

But who was this homeless person? How did she know her? These are the questions the media couldn’t be bothered to ask.

Here’s a recording we’ve gotten ahold of in which Hadassah clearly states that she intended to rent out 16 Cedar Street, but her tenants stiffed her after four months without paying, and she became disillusioned with being a landlord.

Delinquent tenants are a landlords worst nightmare. It’s the worst part about owning property, and it’s very difficult and expensive to take them to court and kick them out. She never wanted to do this again, which is why she started a “shelter” in which the residents pay her money, and she can still kick them out on the spot without going to court.

Until recently the GRC was registered with the town as a daycare called The Hadassah House. The reviews are stellar on Facebook.

And on Yelp.

We spoke with a woman who hired Hadassah in 2012 for daycare services. This is what she told us:

“When I met her I was a newly single mother looking for child care and she was advertising affordable daycare. She presented really well at first, but then my son started to become afraid of her, and then I found out she was leaving my son there with her 2 very strange teenage boys while she went into Boston and I was at work and she never told me. She will tell you ANYTHING to get what she wants! I have NEVER met someone like her before. It’s almost hard to write it all out, but she’s CRAZY and sketchy.”

The house she claims to be the women’s shelter was a COMPLETE disaster with no hot water if any water at all. When I was friendly with her she only had 1 girl living there. She held this poor girl pretty much hostage. Did not allow this girl to leave without her, I would hear her degrade her telling her how fat and gross she was on a regular basis. She would order her around and treated her like her own personal slave and she knew she had the power over her and used it to her complete advantage, to the point Hadassah would tell this girl she couldn’t smoke (on or off the property) but then would turn around and light a cigarette right in front of her and tell her when she lost some weight maybe she could start smoking again. 

Her house that she lives in had probably 15-20 cats living there and the smell could kill a horse. On top of that she brought me down into her basement at one point and she had 3 goats separated by plywood AND chickens in this little side room with no windows and no way for them to get in and out. In the garage there were these giant bunnies with over grown nappy hair and a patriot that was loosing its feathers. Everything was gross and not taken care of.  She had 2 sons living with her who very rarely came out of their rooms and seemed terrified of her. If they breathed in a way she didn’t like she would reprimand them so aggressively in Hebrew to the point they would cower and walk away. About every-other weekend or so there was a very strange older man that would drive down from another state to see her. He wouldn’t say much just be there and it never added up. 

When I pulled my son from her care after she took him on the train to Boston without my knowledge, she HARASSED me to no end for days.

As usual, she treats her children as unpaid employees and delegates work to them. This is how she justifies letting them live there rent free as grownups.

The donations to the Gan Rivkah Center are pretty significant, and I saw many large deposits while looking through her books.  TJ Maxx gave her a $10,000 check in November 2017.

Great photo op for sure. Large corporation with deep pockets have budgets for philanthropy, and what better charitable organization to give to than a homeless shelter that lets women keep their pets? I’m sure they didn’t do much research, and I don’t hold them, or anyone else who donate do them, at fault. After all, the media and the town have actively endorsed this woman’s organization, so why would they think anything nefarious was going on?

TJX Senior Systems Analyst Diane Collard was at the GRC earlier in 2017 to give Hadassah another check for $2,500.

TJX allegedly gave more money in January 2019, along with the infamous Gochberg’s of Minnesota, who are the parents of Lawrence Gochberg, who owns both houses on Cedar Street and who Hadassah claims is her brother.

Those clearly are not the beds that are in the house today.

She also claims Tom Brady donated to the “shelter” at that time as well.

Tom Brady, who is worth billions of dollars, couldn’t come up with the whole $1,200, so she needed other people to chip in too. He can’t do it all, just ask Giselle.

But where were all the residents during this “renovation” in the middle of the winter?

I guess we’ll never know. But she said that over a hundred people called asking to stay there during the renovation, because Hadassah has a savior complex and desperately wants to let the world know that she is wanted, appreciated, and loved.

The “renovation” was almost entirely painting, which Hadassah bravely did on an allegedly fractured ankle, and of course posed for a picture.

Hadassah frequently uses her alleged ailments as a crutch, but at the same time lets people know that she’s going to work through it anyway, because that’s what people with a savior’s complex do.

We’ll get to that in a later blog.

She claims that Hasbro CEO John Frascotti gave an unspecified “incredibly generous” donation in July 2018.

She also mentions Tony Chianese. Tony is one of the most well liked, and well respected people in Milford. He has donated more time and money than anyone to help her keep the GRC running, and was her husband Vladimir’s sponsor for citizenship. This is what Hadassah is very good at – getting influential, well respected people of means to go to bat for her in order to increase the perceived legitimacy of her organization.

Tony put on a fundraiser at the “grand opening” of the Bread Bowl Cafe, which was more like an addition of 8 barstools and some place mats at the already existent Trinkets and Treasures.

Notice that the people she thanks includes a woman who was a resident at the time. Hadasah filmed this woman at the “grand opening” and posted it on the GRC Facebook page. Many people we spoke with tell us that Hadassah gets some of the residents to work off their rent by “volunteering” at her for profit business, which again, exists to to provide a profit for the GRC.

To be honest, I’m kind of surprised no one else stopped to ask her how these businesses made enough money to sustain the shelter. They could see with their own eyes that these cannot possibly generate a large profit. And if they lost money, which they almost certainly would, what was her backup plan? She also said that the shelter owns the businesses.

Does it really matter at this point? It’s all just one giant account that doesn’t get reported to the IRS anyway.

Tony Chianese was also instrumental in getting her a drier, which she said the residents needed because they were forced to go to the laundry mat and many didn’t have cars. Many volunteered to give her a drier, but Tony ended up getting one donated from Frank’s Appliances.

Except there’s just one problem. According to several women we spoke with who lived there, the drier was in her house at 18 Cedar Street. I asked her about this but she would not let me in the basement when I was at 16 Cedar Street.

I did not speak with Tony Chianese about this story because I’ve been told that he’s a humble and normally private person, and I respect boundaries. He, like many others, has figured out what this house is really about and no longer associates with Hadassah. When I spoke with Hadassah last week and asked her about Tony, her response was, “He’s a bad man.” Her reasoning was that according to her Tony told other women in town that Hadassah is a Trump supporter and a supporter of the former police chief who was unjustly removed by the corrupt Board of Selectmen. After that Hadassah alleges that the other women who had been helping her, all began to shun her because they didn’t like Trump or the Chief. I spoke with many of these women, some of who are Trump supporters, some of who are democrats, and others who were just apolitical volunteers trying to do the right thing. Hadassah is blaming politics because she can’t admit that she’s done anything wrong.

Hadassah has also elicited support from Milford’s State Rep Brian Murray, and State Senator Ryan Fattman. Murray gave her a check for $1,000 last year.

Representative Murray and Senator Fattman also gave an award to the Girl Scouts that month for their work donating hand made aprons to the GRC.

I contacted both of them prior to this blog being published and both of them responded. Here’s what Representative Murray had to say.

If true, that is awful. I had never heard of this place until last year a woman in the district told me that there was this shelter for women, that allowed pets which I guess is unusual, that was in financial need of closing. I contacted the woman whose name I was given (I cannot remember it, but it was unusual), and she told a little about the shelter, that it had been in Milford for, I think, 10 years and needed funds badly to keep the electricity on. I went to the house, met her, she showed me around a bit and I gave her a donation. There were two residents on the back porch at the time and she told them that I was giving her money which would allow her to keep the electricity on. They thanked me. I told her that if there was anything else I could do to help, please let me know, but I have had no contact since. She also told me that owns/runs? some kind of a food place on Main Street that used to be called the Bread Bowl. I’m not sure of the name now or if it is even open. That’s about the extent of what I know about this. If you need any help on this in terms of contacting the District Attorney’s office to investigate or even Milford Police, please let me know and I’ll do whatever I can.

Sincerely,

Brian W. Murray, State Representative

He, like many others, donated because he put his faith in Hadassah. Senator Fattman sounded like he’d never heard of the place before.

Hey Aidan,

Do you know the address? I am not aware off the top of my head. But maybe the location will help me. 

Happy to help! 

Ryan 

Hmmmm….

Interesting.

This series was supposed to be 5 blogs. It’s clearly going to be many more than that now, as new information pours in every day. I’ll try to keep each blog to 2,000 words so not to bore you to death. But at this point we’re all in on this story. More than anything I’m sick of the apathy, negligence, and I would argue promotion of this alleged “shelter,” from the powers that be. I called all three members of the Board of Selectmen, the Town Administrator, and the fire department today. I did get a call back from Selectman Walsh, who told me that on Thursday he was going to go to the house and had spoken with the Town Administrator. If the others don’t want to call me back, that’s their choice. I’m not going to stop calling though, so they should probably just give me a call back.

 

 

 

Please consider supporting local journalism by donating to the Turtle fund:




Follow us on Youtube, SoundCloud, Twitter, and Facebook.

Hello Turtle Riders. As you know if you follow Turtleboy we are constantly getting censored and banned by Facebook for what are clearly not violations of their terms of service. Twitter has done the same, and trolls mass reported our blog to Google AdSense thousands of times, leading to demonitization. We can get by and survive, but we could really use your help. Please consider donating by hitting the PayPal button above if you’d like support free speech and what we do in the face of Silicon Valley censorship. Or just buy our award winning book about the dangers of censorship and rise of Turtleboy: 

 

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
3 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Hello Turtle Riders. As you know if you follow Turtleboy we are constantly getting censored and banned by Facebook for what are clearly not violations of their terms of service. Twitter has done the same, and trolls mass reported our blog to Google AdSense thousands of times, leading to demonetization. We can get by and survive, but we could really use your help. Please consider donating by hitting the Donation button above if you'd like support free speech and what we do in the face of Silicon Valley censorship. Or just buy our award winning book about the dangers of censorship and rise of Turtleboy:  Qries
3
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x

Adblock Detected

Support the news you love. Please disable the ad blocker or purchase our ad free subscription