The former chief executive of Urban Corps of San Diego County says it was relatively common for the nonprofit’s employees to perform work at the personal homes and properties of its senior leaders.
Kyle Kennedy, who departed earlier this month after The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that he had dozens of staff renovate a home he bought from a subordinate, said the new CEO also had Urban Corps workers paint her house.
In his first interview since he left the venerable nonprofit, which dates back to 1989, Kennedy said the arrangement served the workers by providing them much-needed experience and also gave them jobs when other contracts were running short.
“All the workers are compensated,” he said. “They are in a job-training program. They get paid to do whatever they do. Sometimes when there’s no work, they would do odd jobs at our houses.”
Kennedy said the practice had been going on for years, long before he was named CEO in 2019.
“Everybody at Urban Corps was aware of it, except the board,” he said.
A house renovated by Urban Corps staff on Wednesday, June 4, 2025 in San Diego. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The Union-Tribune reported last month that Kennedy had up to 26 workers renovate a three-bedroom home he had bought from a subordinate in 2023. The construction included interior and exterior work and cost more than $100,000, he said.
An independent nonprofit lawyer interviewed by the newspaper said the arrangement appeared to be improper.
Two board members resigned in protest over a decision by Chair Tracey Williams and a majority of other directors to allow Kennedy to remain CEO, even though he had misused nonprofit resources and did not inform the board.
After an internal investigation, Urban Corps said, Kennedy was placed on a three-month performance improvement plan but was allowed to keep his $209,000-a-year job. Within weeks, board members Mario Sierra and Linda Caballero-Sotelo resigned, saying they could not support keeping him.
Kennedy’s “demonstrated history of questionable decisions, poor judgment and lack of responsibility are far beyond excusable,” Sierra wrote in his letter of resignation. “I cannot be part of an organization in which I have lost all confidence and trust in the CEO.”
Early this month, Urban Corps issued a public statement saying that Kennedy was leaving the organization, effective immediately, based on a board decision reached earlier in June, before the Union-Tribune’s report.
The board subsequently named longtime Urban Corps official Anne Bernstein acting CEO.
Sierra said in his resignation letter that Bernstein had joined Kennedy in asking Sierra not to tell the rest of the board about the renovation underway at Kennedy’s home on Epsilon Street.
He later said in an interview that Bernstein also had Urban Corps employees perform work on her own house.
In a statement Friday, Bernstein acknowledged she had used nonprofit staff to paint her home but denied having asked anyone to conceal information from the board.
“I hired a crew for a small job to paint the siding on my house,” she said. “This occurred over a decade ago, in 2011 or 2012, with the full permission of the CEO at the time (not Mr. Kennedy). I paid fully for these services out of pocket.”
Williams said she had complete faith in Bernstein’s ability to manage the $20 million organization, whose mission is to provide work experience and life skills to disadvantaged young people from 18 to 26 years old.
“Anne has always been, and continues to be, very upfront and transparent with myself and the board,” she said. “Anne has been incredibly dedicated to the organization. She has been a loyal employee and ambassador for Urban Corps for over 20 years.”
Enad Alkadro, 19, front, and Daivan Athore, 19, who both work at Urban Corps, help plant one of twenty trees that were planted in Cesar Chavez Park as part of an effort to expand Barrio Logan’s tree canopy on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2022 in San Diego. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
In his interview, Kennedy cited family reasons and outside business obligations as reasons for his departure from Urban Corps. He said the decision was made before the Union-Tribune published its first report in mid-June.
He also acknowledged he barely spoke with Urban Corps board members, except during the handful of meetings convened each year.
“I didn’t work closely with the board at all,” Kennedy said. “We meet five times a year. It’s different. At Urban Corps, (board members) don’t talk to anyone in the organization. They have no idea what the daily activities are.”
Nonprofit officials disputed Kennedy’s characterization of the relationship between the board and himself.
“Not only do we strenuously disagree with this assertion, but it is the obligation of the CEO to report regularly to the board, not the other way around,” Urban Corps said in a statement attributed to the organization.
Any lack of communication and coordination between any charity executive and their board, or executive committee, is generally considered outside the best practices of any organization.
In the nonprofit world, like in most companies, the board sets policy and selects its leader to implement those policies. Board members also have legal and fiduciary responsibilities to make sure things happen as directed.
The Union-Tribune learned about the renovation at Kennedy’s investment property when it obtained copies of the resignation letters submitted last fall by Caballero-Sotelo and Sierra.
Sierra said he learned about the work from Sam Duran, who founded Urban Corps of San Diego County in 1989 and served as its longtime CEO.
Duran, who now lives in Texas, was driving down Epsilon Street in the Shelltown neighborhood when he noticed the Urban Corps trucks in front of a house. He stopped and chatted up the workers, some of whom he knew, and was upset to hear the property was owned by his successor.
He quickly alerted the board and pushed for Kennedy to be fired.
“If you’re hiding stuff like that, it brings dishonor to what your (organization’s) goal is, and that is to bring these kids around and make them better citizens,” Duran told the Union-Tribune last month.
Last summer, the board hired an outside firm to investigate what happened.
The review, completed last August, found Kennedy “acted independently of Urban Corps’ accounting department, resulting in actions that were not able to be corroborated by others and may require a forensic audit to confirm.”
The report also said the former CEO was not fully cooperative.
“Further, Kyle Kennedy’s defensive responses in this investigative interview created barriers to understanding his actions. Lastly, the lack of documentation surrounding the facts of this issue as explained below created challenges in verifying information,” it said.
In speaking this week with the Union-Tribune, Kennedy said the arrangement benefited the Urban Corps employees because they got to work and learn new skills. He also said he could have completed the renovation more quickly had he hired an outside contractor.
“I’m allowing them a training opportunity,” he said. “We need partners with properties to work on so we can do teachings about how to do the work. I paid for all the work that was done.”
He also said he paid fair-market value for the home, which was previously owned by the family of Marissa Cassani, whom he subsequently promoted to human resources director.
Public property records show the house was worth up to $600,000 at the time he bought the home for $450,000. Kennedy said the property was in terrible shape and needed to be completely rebuilt.
Williams said the organization’s investigative findings were confidential and would not be released.