# 133 Thirteen year old girl works in rubbish dump in the morning and attends CCF school in the afternoon!

Dear Scott

This morning I met a shy 13 year old girl who works in the Phnom Penh rubbish dump in the mornings and goes to school at CCF in the afternoon. Her father died five years ago. Her mother has five children to rear. She is the oldest.

I conducted a videotaped interview with her.

This girl told me the Cambodian Children’s Fund gives the family 5 kilos of rice each month. That’s less than $10 worth of rice per month or roughly $120 worth of rice each year.

In the IRS tax return of 2013 CCF claimed to be spending $2,000 per year per child on education. Does this mean that there is an entry in CCF’s books, with this girl’s name alongside it, and the sum of $2,000?

To put this another way, have sponsors and donors given CCF $2,000 towards the education of this girl?

I doubt very much that you will answer this question but if you do, please do the sums for me, and for others interested.

It seems to me (though I have never been much good at maths), if CCF has $2,000 to spend on this girl’s education, that $120 per annum is going to the family and $1,880 is going to CCF. The family’s entire income for the year is around $1,000.

If my maths here is wrong, please enlighten me with the correct maths.

No doubt the usual Neeson Trolls will attack me for the usual reasons but really, Scott, it is time for you to answer some questions.

This little girl, young woman, also told me that of the 700 people working in the Phnom Penh rubbish dump, 100 of them are children.

Why, given the millions of dollars you have at your disposal, are there any children at all working in the rubbish dump? And how can you, with a clear conscience, Scott, allow a 13 year old to be both working in the dump and attending a CCF school whilst you provide each member of this family with only 10 kilos of rice per year?

I showed a photograph of you to members of the community. Not one of them has ever seen you and has no idea who you are. Given that many of these people have lived in the same place for years now it would seem, as with much else of what you claim about yourself, that it is not true that you are a regular visitor to the communities you claim to be helping.

I have not mentioned this girl’s name because I know the pressure she and her family would be placed under to recant what she told me. Alternatively, you could shower the family with money and maybe even give the girl (and her mother) jobs with CCF and buy their silence that way.

I look forward to your response, Scott, though I think I would have to sit down in a state of shock of you were to provide one. Instead, you will relegate the name-calling and shooting of the messenger to your Trolls.

cheers

James

# 132 'World Housing' & Scott Neeson's CCF housing scam

Dear Graham Brewster

and all those who,

on the World Housing website,

sing the praises of World Housing

One of my questions, to by found in my ‘open letter’ of 7^th August has been answered.

World Housing HAS been aware, for quite some time, that the homes ‘gifted’ to  impoverished Cambodian families have, in fact, been gifted to Scott Neeson’s Cambodian Children’s Fund.

Scott Neeson has NOT then ‘gifted’ these homes to those for whom the homes were intended.   He has kept them for himself, for CCF, to be rented to impoverished families!

World Housing and the Cambodian Children’s Fund have conspired, using deliberately misleading language on your respective websites, to create the illusion that impoverished families are the beneficiaries of free housing. This is, as you know Graham, and as you have known for a long time, is not so. You have deliberately mislead developers –the builders of condominiums – into believing that they were providing homes to impoverished families that they could call their own. Instead, you have provided Scott Neeson’s Cambodian Children’s Fund with $840,000 of free housing.

You, and your World Housing compatriots,  have exploited the poverty of desperately poor families in Phnom Penh for your own personal gain. In the case of Scott Neeson the gain has been financial: 300+ free houses at $2,800 per house.

In addition to this, Scott’s reputation has been enhanced by his being able to present CCF as partnering with World Housing to provide impoverished Cambodian families with a home they can call their own. A lie, but then Scott is a marketing man for whom facts and truth are irrelevant when there is a product to be sold!

In the case of World Housing, all of those to whom I wrote my ‘open letter’, have benefited financially from the $50,000 paid per developer for the privilege of ‘gifting’ homes to impoverished Cambodian families. How many developers are there under the World Housing umbrella?

Peter Dupuis and Sid Landolt have been the primary financial beneficiaries, however. They get their commission on each and every condominium sold through World Housing. Not one dollar of their own money goes to help impoverished families in Cambodia.

In addition, Peter and Sid’s reputations in Vancouver are enhanced as two  humanitarian men using their business acumen to help impoverished families in Cambodia. Words cannot express my contempt for the kind of cynical exploitation of 3^rd world poverty that Peter and Sid have knowingly engaged in.

This is not to let you off the hook, Graham. You have gone along with this web of deceit; knowing all along that it was a marketing scam.

The question now is whether or not the World Housing board, and others touting World Housing, have also been knowingly involved in this scam to provide Scott Neeson with free housing?

The most pressing question now, however, (for me at least), is to find out whether developers who opened their hearts and their wallets to provide free housing to impoverished families in Cambodia are aware that they have provided free housing to Scott Neeson?

The mind boggles at the sheer audacity and scale of this scam.

World Housing seems, on paper, to be a terrific idea. I will give World Housing the benefit of the doubt for the next 48 hours, operating on the presumption that the bulk of those to whom I wrote my ‘open letter’ were unaware of this scam. If I do not receive from World Housing what I consider to be an adequate response to the questions I have asked I will be left with no alternative but to report World Housing to the relevant Canadian authorities and to warn Vancouver developers to be very careful in believing that what World Housing tells them about their partnership with Scott Neeson’s Cambodian Children’s Fund is true.

The ball is in your court, Graham. This is not a time to call in the spin doctors but to sever your relationship with Scott Neeson and to see to it that the homes ‘gifted’ to impoverished Cambodian families wind up in their hands and not Scott Neeson’s.

I am copying this to some representatives of the 4^th Estate who will, I trust, take an interest in how you respond to my ‘open letter’ and to this addendum to it; and who may be induced to ask a few pertinent questions of their own.

best wishes

James Ricketson

# 131 Is 'World Housing' a marketing scam designed to provide Scott Neeson with free houses he can then rent to impoverished Cambodian families?

Graham Brewster

Managing Director

World Housing

7th August 2015

Dear Graham Brewster

Peter Dupuis

Sid Landolt

Melissa Orozco

Bruce MacDonald

Kate de Wolf

Hal Devine

Harry Wang

Jeffrey Stone

Robert Foord

Tony Allard

I am writing to you regarding “the gifting and construction of garbage dump homes” in Cambodia by ‘World Housing’, in partnership with Scott Neeson and the Cambodian Children’s Fund.

The following is to be found on the World Housing website. The italics are mine.

World Housing CCC Inc’s community purpose, as outlined in our founding corporate articles, is to provide homes and other forms of shelter to disadvantaged families, and promote community development.  Specifically the homes we provide are for “dump-dweller” families living around Third World garbage dumps and often deriving their income from garbage picking.

World Housing is the world’s first “one-for-one” real estate gifting model. For every home sold at one of our certified World Housing condominium projects, the developer partner provides the funding for the construction of a home in a Third World garbage dump community overseen by one of our NGO-Builder Partners; this home is then gifted to a qualified deserving family living in a Third World garbage dump community. We connect people and organizations: developers, real estate buyers, NGOs, builders and qualified home recipients….

sincerely

Graham Brewster

Managing Director

June 30, 2014

The word ‘gifted’ is significant here.

On the World Housing website is to be found the following question and answer. (italics mine)

Question: How do buyers contribute to the gifting and construction of garbage dump homes ?

Answer: Buyers play the most important role: they “vote with their wallets.” By purchasing a home at a World Housing project, they make a statement about their desire to help.

This reads well. World Housing’s objectives seem to be noble but it is difficult to understanding precisely what the word ‘gifting’ means in a Cambodian context.

Questions:

Are developers who purchase “a home at a World Housing project” ‘gifting’ a house to a family whose members work in (or used to work in) the Phnom Penh rubbish dump?

Or:

Are companies “purchasing a home at a World Housing project” merely expressing ‘their desire to help.”

Expressing a desire to help put a poor family into a house of their own and actually ‘gifting’ them a house are two quite different things.

The answer to the question of what ‘gifting’ actually means, in practice, seems to be found on the Cambodian Children’s Fund website. Dated 12^th Nov 2013, the headline reads:

“World Housing Gifts New Home to CCF Families”

This seems clear. A gift is something given. A gift is not something rented. Homes are being given to CCF families by World Housng. This impression is borne out by what follows. The italics are mine:

“Five families received brand-new homes this week. Soon, hundreds of people in the Steung Meanchey community will have similar places to call their own. The sturdily built homes come with a downstairs kitchen, access to a restroom and provides a secure, healthy place for families to live. Such things were once unattainable.

The life-changing homes were made possible by World Housing, a social venture inspired by the TOMS Shoes one-for-one model. For every condominium sold by a real estate partner of Canada-based World Housing, they’ll provide a home for an impoverished family at their project sites in the Philippines, Mexico and Cambodia. As production ramps up in Cambodia, more than 20 homes will be constructed monthly for families at Cambodian Children’s Fund”

The full story is to be found at:

https://www.cambodianchildrensfund.org/recent-news-list/381-world-housing-gifts-new-homes-to-ccf-families.html

I think that most readers of both the CCF and World Housing websites could be forgiven for believing that World Housing was giving homes to “hundreds of people in the Steung Meanchey community”; homes that these impoverished families can “call their own.”

There is a problem here, however.

Whilst World Housing is ‘gifting’ homes to the Cambodian Children’s Fund, Scott Neeson is not ‘gifting’ them to “hundreds of people in the Steung Meanchey community”. No, he is renting the ‘gifted’ houses to families on land owned by CCF.

Another Q & A to be found on the World Housing website reads:

Question: Is World Housing a charity or non-profit organization ?

Answer: World Housing is Canada’s first Community Contribution Company, a registered social enterprise that enables sustainable social change through a for-profit enterprise.

Questions:

Is World Housing aware that Scott Neeson is renting the homes ‘gifted’ by World Housing to CCF to impoverished families living in Steung Meanchey?

If World Housing is aware that CCF is renting these houses, built on CCF-owned land, in what way does World Housing believe that the ‘gifting’ of these houses is creating “a legacy of sustainable change in the communities”?

I am referring here to the following description of World Housing’s aims and objectives is to be found on your website. The italics are mine.

“Making a worldwide social venture come to life takes a team of leaders committed to social change. World Housing has assembled a team of international business and thought leaders who have made a personal investment to ensure that World Housing creates a legacy of sustainable change in the communities it touches.”

‘Sustainable change in communities’ may well be what many of you ‘thought leaders’ believe to be taking place, but is it?

It seems to me, but please correct me if I am wrong, that the reality of the World Housing program, at least as far as it relates to Cambodia, is this:

- Developers in Canada and elsewhere want to appear to be concerned about the plight of poor people in 3^rd world countries and are prepared to pay $50,000 to World Housing to become a member.

- Real estate agents Peter Dupuis and Sid Landolt benefit, via their commissions, from every condo built under the World Housing umbrella. Neither Peter nor Sid has to contribute $1 to the construction of World Housing homes in Cambodia but benefit from having their reputations as being benevolent and caring enhanced.

Scott Neeson does not have to pay $1 to construct the World Housing homes in Steung Meanchey. World Housing has ‘gifted’ them to CCF and the houses are erected on land owned by the Cambodian Children’s Fund.

CCF then rents these ‘gifted houses’ to impoverished Cambodian families and makes a profit. It is not a huge profit but it is a profit.

Given that the ‘gifted’ World Housing houses have been built on land owned by CCF (‘gifted’ to CCF by sponsors and donors) the families that rent these houses can never own them (call them their own.) They will forever be dependent on the good will of Scott Neeson and obliged to abide by his rules and regulations. These rules and regulations are strict. They include the prohibition of members of the family visiting or staying in the houses.

Do you, the recipients of this letter, believe that this the best, or most appropriate way, to generate ‘sustainable change’ within impoverished Cambodian communities? Or has World Housing, in conjunction with the sponsors and donors who bought the land for CCF, given Scott Neeson carte blanche to create a community that is totally dependent on him?

Have any of you ‘thought leaders’ seen a copy of the contract that CCF enters into with families who rent the gifted World Housing homes?

Are you aware that the World Housing homes ‘gifted’ to Scott Neeson re only available to be rented by families that have children taking part in one of CCF’s ‘programs’?

Are you aware that each of these CCF children generates $4,000 in income each year for the Cambodian Children’s Fund – in a country in which the per capita income is a little more than $1,000 a year. This is not a groundless assertion, as would become apparent if you were to look back through some old blog entries. The following may be a good place to start:

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com/2015/02/96-message-for-heather-graham-re.html

Is World Housing assisting in the development of a strong and self-sufficient Cambodian community in Steung Meanchey or is it giving Scott Neeson both free housing and philanthropic credibility in an experiment in social engineering in which he calls all of the shots?

Are developers who pay their $50,000 to join World Housing being beguiled into believing that they are buying homes for poor people when in fact they are buying homes to very rich individuals like Scott Neeson, who then rents these ‘gifted’ homes to very poor people and locks them out if they get behind in their rent? Yes, CCF locks out tenants who get as little as $12.50 behind in their rent. Visit:

http://cambodianchildrensfund.blogspot.com/

And view:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve280RWEV5w

Now, let’s look again at the Q & A quoted earlier:

Question: How do buyers contribute to the gifting and construction of garbage dump homes ?

Answer: Buyers play the most important role: they “vote with their wallets.” By purchasing a home at a World Housing project, they make a statement about their desire to help.

Has the word ‘gifting’ been used in a deliberately vague way so as to deceive readers (and more particularly developers) into believing that homes are being ‘gifted’ to poor families when in fact they are being ‘gifted’ to Scott Neeson’s Cambodian Children’s? Or is this an honest mistake made by whoever wrote the text for the World Housing website?

If the latter be the case, can we expect that World Housing will, on its website, make it clear that it is not ‘gifting’ homes to impoverished families but  ‘gifting’ them to organizations such as Neeson’s CCF – NGOs which remain free to rent these ‘gifted’ homes to impoverished Cambodians?

In an age in which so much information can be accessed online in a matter of seconds, are you ‘thought leaders’ – collectively and individually – sure that World Housing’s association with Scott Neeson is not one that you will, in time, regret. If you have even a shadow of a doubt, you need to ask Scott Neeson a few questions and bear in mind that Scott’s skill lies in marketing and that his instinct will be to provide you with the answers that he believes you want/need to hear.

The questions contained in the following blog entry are ones that all of you might like to ask of Scott Neeson:

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com/2015/08/130-questions-for-cambodian-childrens.html

best wishes

James Ricketson