America's Homeless Are Going Missing

With over 500,000 homeless in the United States, homeless cities are popping up at record numbers Photo courtesy Mercury News, San Jose, Calif.

The numbers are staggering. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in the United States, there were approximately 554,000 homeless people on any given night last year. Sadly, that number is rising.

According to Forbes, cities with the highest rate of homelessness are in one of five states: California (129,972), New York (91,897), Florida (31,030), Texas (25,310), and Washington (22,304). It's not surprising that the problem has become much more visible in urban areas and over half of all homeless people live in one of the country’s 50 largest cities.

Homelessness is an issue that permeates many societies throughout the world but seems to be a unique struggle in the United States. One might be surprised to know, the Big Apple has one of the lowest levels of unsheltered homeless, at 5%, while in Los Angeles, 75% of people were found in unsheltered locations.

People who are homeless are often not able to secure and maintain regular, safe, and secure housing. Many become transient, never staying in one place for any length of time . . . wandering the streets, from city to city.

Who Are the Homeless? 

People often become homeless when the economic issues collide with their housing issues and often include other factors such as domestic violence, physical disability, mental illness, addiction, transitioning into adulthood, and strains on relationships.

Many homeless people start out with jobs and homes; then social and economic factors intervene.

Something that we see more and more often these days is homelessness caused by untreated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), along with untreated depression and other serious mental illnesses.

According to the Mental Illness Policy Org., in January 2015, the most extensive survey ever undertaken by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) revealed 250,000 homeless individuals suffered from varying mental illnesses. That is 45% of the total homeless population.

At any given time, there are many more people with untreated severe psychiatric illnesses living on the streets than are receiving care in hospitals. Approximately 90,000 individuals with schizophrenia or manic-depressive illness are in hospitals receiving treatment for their disease.

How Many Homeless Are Missing?

As of April 30, 2018, there were 86,927 people in the United States listed as missing in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There are no statistics available about missing persons and homelessness being a factor in the disappearance.

To further complicate any understanding of the numbers, homeless shelters and service providers ride a very delicate line. Due to privacy-related HIPAA regulations, tracking a person that is navigating the hodgepodge of homeless services can be nearly impossible. Providers do not report entry logs with missing person systems because of HIPAA. Also, there is no training to use the counts to collect information and data that can help identify known missing persons.

As the law stands, adult persons can come and go as they please. Unlike with missing children, there is no statute requiring law enforcement to even take a report, though in some state’s legislation has been passed to change that and improvements being made.

Organizations like Missing and Homeless are urging communities to work collaboratively with the homeless with direct outreach efforts beyond that system that is in place. Small providers, nonprofits and homeless individuals themselves are more successful in assisting with the search efforts of other missing people.

What Happens When a Loved One is Homeless and Goes Missing?

There is nothing more intense and emotional than not knowing where someone you love is. The ambiguity alone can cause extreme emotional turmoil. Families are left frantically searching, hanging fliers, begging for media exposure, and talking to anyone who will listen in an attempt to find they're missing loved one.

Bridget Pendell vanished April 2003 and despite hundreds of leads she has never been seen again. Photo courtesy of SF Gate/Flier courtesy Kym Pasqualini - National Center for Missing Adults.

Bridget Pendell's Story

Bridget Pendell may look like a wasted-thin drug addict and could be wandering the streets of San Francisco or turning tricks in Portland or Phoenix. Or she could be dead, just another unidentified missing person buried in the city’s Potter’s Field.

Her sister Jackie Horne wants to know what happened to Bridget. She has spent the last 15 years searching for her, traveling from New York to San Francisco to scour the city for her missing sister.

Jackie Horne leaves missing person posters on mailboxes in the Haight district of San Francisco. Photo courtesy of SF Gate/Flier courtesy Kym Pasqualini - National Center for Missing Adults.

Pendell would be 46 now and shows just how easily homeless can disappear. Horne travels the hard-core sections of the city where women sell their bodies for sex and drugs, leaving missing person posters on mailboxes, giving out her missing person posters and scanning the worn-out faces. Horne quietly asks for help from anyone who will listen.

Bridget's Early Life

Pendell was a beautiful young girl who grew up in Plattsburg, New York, and graduated high school before becoming a Barbizon model student. She eventually became a nurse and met the “man of her dreams,” married, and had a baby girl named Sasha. Pendell had met some friends who followed the Grateful Dead, and she joined them and began following the band throughout the country.

Followers of the Grateful Dead followed the band to different locations throughout the country.

Divorce and Disappearance

Pendell’s new lifestyle broke the marriage apart as her husband would have no part in the lifestyle she was dabbling in. Following their divorce, Pendell began wandering between New York, Kansas, and Florida, sometimes with Sasha. There she began using heroin and cocaine and by 1996, she had succumbed to drugs and prostitution.

Pendell’s mother took Sasha while Pendell continued to live in California. Her last chance was when the family decided the only way to save Pendell was to have her enter a two-month drug rehabilitation program. If she refused, no one was certain what would happen to her.

She accepted the help and entered into Seton Health System rehab center. A doctor’s report explaining Pendell’s condition read: “Above average intelligence.” She was released from rehab two days early and immediately left for San Francisco.

Jackie Horne walks the streets of San Francisco talking to the home to help find her missing sister Bridget Pendell.

Her Sister's Search

From the answers Horne receives while out searching, it seems Pendell is known everywhere, yet a phantom in a dark world few can imagine.

“I saw her a couple of days ago, I swear,” a prostitute named Crystal said as she brushed on mascara, getting ready to hit the chaos of Mission Street. “She works this street. Shoots up heavy.” Another man said he believed Pendell went by the nickname Butterfly.

Now joining in the search is Pendell’s daughter Sasha, who, despite her mother vanishing, has maintained Straight As at school. Growing up without her mother, she did know her mother was on drugs. “Maybe she feels bad . . . maybe she doesn’t want to come back into my life while she’s on drugs . . . but if I could see her, I would tell her I wasn’t mad.”

Leads have been received from across the country, but most have led back to San Francisco and Santa Cruz. Another possibility is that known rapist, Jack Bokin killed Pendell. Horne reached out to him and he never denied killing her. It is unknown what happened to Pendell and if she is still alive out there somewhere.

Horrified seeing the numbers of other missing, San Francisco authorities explained to Horne that every year, hundreds of homeless die in the city, most identified.

Nobody knows exactly how many chronically homeless people are missing. Losing touch with family and friends, they are joining a steady stream of panhandlers and those sleeping on the sidewalk. Going under the radar, with no identification, no address, no welfare checks, they are impossible to follow.

According to the California Department of Justice, more than 17,000 women like Pendell are reported missing in California every year, but no records are kept about how many are homeless. Nearly 300 are found deceased, and although most are found safe, approximately 100 remain missing—whereabouts unknown. Morgues throughout California maintain remains of over 2,000 people, dating back 45 years, who have never been identified.

“We have about two bodies per year we can’t identify, and we cremate another 160 because we make an identification but can’t find relatives to claim them,” said Herb Hawley, administrator at the San Francisco medical examiner’s office. It is a similar story throughout the country.

"It’s just like she vanished off the face of the earth,” said Horne as she walks up and down a line of homeless men and women waiting for lunch at a local church. “These guys in line, all those homeless people around downtown—they have relatives, too, and hopefully some of those relatives know where they are. But Bridget? Nothing.”

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Gangs in the Workplace: They are More Sophisticated Than You May Think

The days of red and blue handkerchiefs, baggy pants, graffiti, rap-music, and drive-by shootings are no longer such a popular sub-culture. Believe it or not, the new kind of gangsters hold college degrees, work and hold jobs in offices, warehouses, even government positions and police departments. They are a more sophisticated criminal and have infiltrated corporate America too.

No more baggy pants. Today, you are more apt to find a gang member wearing black patent leather shoes.

If you think this is not a possibility in your own company, think again. No industry or company is exempt. A University of Chicago study found gangs have increasingly adopted a clean-cut appearance while replicating techniques used by organized crime.

Described as “very sophisticated and well organized” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), they estimate there are 33,000 violent street gangs with 1.4 million members nationwide. You can safely double that number if you count affiliates and wannabes. That number has risen steeply, up from 1996 where an estimated 400,000 gang members were accounted for in the University of Chicago study.

Well-known companies, Chicago Police Department, the United States Post Office, major pharmaceutical companies, and even the Social Security Administration has found gang members within their ranks carrying out complex illegal operations that net millions annually.

According to the FBI 2015, National Gang Report (NGR) gangs have gained employment in the U.S. Military, law enforcement, corrections, and even the judiciary.

From the Streets to a Global Crime Empire

Typically, gangs are known for drug trafficking, robbery, gun trafficking, intimidation rackets, prostitution, human trafficking, fraud and other crimes you may think would not infiltrate a common company. They are. However, increasingly gangs are concentrating their efforts on white-collar crime due to weaker sentencing guidelines and ease of making money.

Now, the term “gang activity” involves identity theft, credit card fraud, prescription drug fraud, trafficking stolen goods, money laundering, mortgage fraud, Social Security Administration fraud, tax fraud, and counterfeiting, securities marketing manipulation. Where there is access, there will be individuals willing to participate in capitalizing and even selling their access to those interested in exploiting the system. 

During 2014, grand larceny accounted for 40% of all crime.

In New Jersey, the 111 Neighborhood Crips used a machine to make gift cards that they distributed to grocery stores, pharmacies and other stores.

Grand larceny accounts for 40% of all crime in the United States during 2014.

In 2015, the Outlaw Gangsta Crips in NYC made approximately $500,000 in a paycheck fraud scheme by obtaining a legitimate paycheck from an employee and used the information to create and cash counterfeit checks.

From 2004 through 2009, fraud investigations alone increased 33%, bringing losses associated with those schemes into the billions of dollars.

According to Fox Business, Gangs such as the Bloods, Crips and La Nuestra Familia that are undertaking white-collar crime are recruiting members that possess the necessary skill-sets, according to the FBI.

When you think gangster, images of Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro, maybe even Snoop Dog, may come to mind, not the impeccably dressed executive working in a high finance position. Or, the nicely dressed woman at the bank who knows how much you deposit weekly or the amount of company payroll.

In a Workforce Magazine article, “Have Gangs Invaded Your Workplace,” during 1995, California, Silicon Valley firms alone were hit with more than 50 armed robberies of microchips and electronic components with the average heist netting the robbers $400,000. “There’s a growing level of sophistication and opportunism,” says Keith Lowry, a detective in the High-Tech Crime Unit of the San Jose Police Department.

Gang members are becoming harder to weed out in the hiring process, much of the time because we commonly think of “gang members” as looking like street thugs, and these old stereotypes are costing companies billions annually.

Weeding out white-collar gang members has become increasingly difficult.

Any company can become a target or an opportunity to engage in illegal activities, like dealing drugs, theft of property or personal information, extortion. Gangs have learned they can make a lot more money by being well-dressed, educated, and articulate.

For instance, electronics firms are easy targets. A microchip or computer processor weighing less than an ounce can score several hundred dollars on the street. The sentence for being charged with a stolen microchip much less than selling less than an ounce of drugs.

Some gangs plant members within a company with a specific goal such as infiltrating dispatching, shipping or the financial departments. They can also pose as temporary workers or work for outside vendors to gain access to numerous companies.

In addition, the growing trend toward outsourcing can often lead to less control over merchandise, files, and information.

According to a Fox Business article “From the Streets to Cyberspace: U.S. Gangs Turn to White Collar Crime,” the FBI says, “Gangs are more adaptable, organized, sophisticated, and opportunistic, exploiting new and advanced technology as a means to recruit, communicated discreetly, target their rivals and perpetuate their criminal activity.”

Facebook has become the preferred method for gang members to communicate according to the FBI. “The proliferation of social networking websites has made gang activity more prevalent and lethal – moving gangs from the streets to cyberspace,” says the FBI.

Arming Your HR

Much of the solution lies in ensuring human resources procedures are effective. Of course, background checks and screening procedures are vital but is there more that can be done to detect potential criminal trying to infiltrate your workforce? The first thing to keep in mind – you get what you pay for and being lax can also cost you.

Local criminal checks are almost worthless, and a full criminal screening can pay off. In addition, many applicants may have earned their GED in prison and with some digging, these individuals may find it harder to infiltrate your company.

Many companies cut corners and haphazardly follow procedures when screening applicants and dealing with the aftermath can result in costing more when you compare it to properly vetting applicant the first time around.

Additionally, letting your applicants know you will be conducting a thorough background, previous employment, driving records, verifying degrees, criminal record check, and reference checks can also discourage many applicants from pursuing the position in the first place, which ultimately saves your company time and costs associated with the screening process.

What is important to consider is applying an effective screening procedure to contractors, consultants and temporary employees depending upon how much access they may be granted, and time spent at your company.

Trusting that a “temp agency” is conducting the appropriate background checks is a potential liability for your company.

Educating your employees about how to spot gang activity and how to deal with it also is crucial. Some companies have found having training sessions and employee meetings add to their success combatting gangs in the workplace.

 Experts agree loyalty to gangs overrides loyalty to an employer. Even though they may try hard to blend in they may still slip occasionally and there are some recommendations on even subtle things to monitor.

• 1.      Does your employee reside in a known gang area?
• 2.      Is your employee responsible? Too much time on the phone or arrive late?
• 3.      Does your employee go by a nickname and have nicknames for friends?
• 4.      Do the clothes, colors or insignias stay consistent?
• 5.      Does your employee have visitors at work, friend or family?
• 6.      Have you noticed any graffiti in or around your workplace?
• 7.      Does your employee use verbal, hand or walking mannerisms that could be associated with gang activity?
• 8.      Is your employee on parole or probation?

Being a girlfriend of a gang banger or being a current or former gang member is not against the law, but it could be a sign of other activity that could be detected if your HR department is cognizant of the many issues that face companies if infiltrated.

Working with undercover PI's can help a company strengthen security.

Using PIs to Combat Gang Intrusion in the Workplace

Private investigators are a commonly used tool in the arsenal to combat “gang intrusion” along with malingering, theft or fraud in the workplace.

Along with surveillance and providing evidence, they can also evaluate your HR department’s policy and procedures through undercover placement or working along with the HR department to tighten up the reigns to reduce incidents of crime.

Many times, it is recommended to have a private investigator apply for employment without informing anyone in your company to best determine where weaknesses exist in the hiring process. 

Were all the references called? What questions were asked? Were the proper background checks completed?

It may be necessary to start at the beginning of the hiring process. In addition, private investigators can be placed in certain departments where there have been discrepancies identified to collect evidence that is admissible in a court of law. It is an extra layer of protection when investigating activities at your company without detection without violating privacy laws.

When a company suspects criminal activity, it is advantageous to hire a professional who will work with police if the legitimate criminal activity is in fact, detected. Abuse of sick leave or malingering that costs companies billions of dollars a year is enough to warrant the hiring of a private detective to legally document the behavior.

From filming a guy talking about starting his new business and hinting at using the employer’s database, to a meat manufacturing plant taking a cut of the supplier’s delivery to the employee watching porn on the company computers, a private investigator can take the care needed to conduct an internal investigation legally, ultimately protecting your company.

Written by Kym Pasqualini

Freelance Writer and Guest Crime Writer for Lauth Investigations International

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