The embattled racial justice nonprofit Brown Hope delayed the $2,000 monthly stipends that it promised to 25 Black families after its bank froze its account, an email obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive shows.
Black Resilience Fund Program Manager Alexandrea Wilson wrote in the Dec. 21 email to grant recipients that Brown Hope’s bank was requesting an official letter from the nonprofit’s legal representation to clarify who the current CEO of the organization is in light of recent upheaval at the nonprofit.
“Therefore, Brown Hope’s bank is currently frozen and we cannot process guaranteed income payments,” Wilson wrote. “We are working with a legal team to resolve this issue.”
Wilson wrote that the nonprofit was waiting for the bank to provide a timeline for when the issue would be resolved.
It is unclear whether the nonprofit has made any progress on resolving the issue since then. Portland resident Enoch McCoy, one of the grant’s recipients, said he hadn’t heard anything further from the nonprofit since receiving the email last week, but remained hopeful that the money would be coming soon.
Cameron Whitten, the group’s founder and CEO, declined to comment on the status of the guaranteed basic income program when reached by The Oregonian/OregonLive Thursday. They told the newspaper that no other representatives from Brown Hope would be available to discuss the program, either.
In a Dec. 8 interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive, Whitten acknowledged they had concerns that families wouldn’t receive their first payments by Dec. 20 as planned. The payments still haven’t gone out.
