Over 3 years, homeless nonprofit paid more than $1.7M to companies owned by its chief executive

In recent years, the nonprofit A Step to Freedom has grown rapidly, collecting millions of dollars from the government to house and feed homeless people coming out of jail in L.A. County.

What was a small organization providing 20 or so men shelter each year, with $25,500 in revenue in 2018, grew to operate six interim housing sites serving about 200 people at a time in 2024, with more than $5 million in revenue, largely from taxpayers, according to federal tax filings.

The expansion enabled A Step to Freedom, run by chief executive Kenya Croom, to help far more people, but it also had another, less visible beneficiary: Croom herself.

According to a Times review of public and internal records, over three years, the nonprofit paid more than $1.7 million to Croom's two for-profit businesses that provided food for the shelters and, in its most recent tax filings, did not disclose her ties to them as required.