Feeding Our Future: 3249 Hennepin Ave. (re)visited

Just south of the once-bustling Uptown neighborhood is this nondescript office building:

3249 Hennepin Avenue South

It was Feeding Our Future’s Abdikerm Eidleh’s business address on Hennepin Avenue, which was searched by the FBI back in January (subject premises No. 4).

A question frequently asked regarding the Feeding Our Future scandal is what connections are there between the free-food scandal and other scandals involving childcare, home health care, medical transportation, and supplemental nutrition programs?

Digging deeper into some of the figures named in the Feeding scandal can shine some light on the topic. It’s worth noting that only two people have been arrested or charged in the free-food scandal, and that was on charges of passport fraud.

We had previously noted the connection between a St. Cloud grocer, recently convicted of food stamp fraud, and his hosting of a free-food distribution site for Feeding Our Future.

It turns out that a figure closer to the heart of the Feeding Our Future scandal also has connections to the personal care attendant (PCA) industry.

Eidleh’s business address was searched, along with a home address in Burnsville (Subject Premises No. 5). Eidleh worked as a program support manager at Feeding Our Future (FBI search warrant, page 53) before the nonprofit was shut down by the state Department of Education.

County property records report that Eidleh purchased the home in Burnsville in late 2020 for $317,000.

The FBI notes that Eidleh owned a number of companies, including one called Charm Home Care LLC (paragraph 26, page 8). Charm Home Care LLC was founded in 2017 and Eidleh is listed on LinkedIn as the CEO of the firm.

Charm Home Care LLC is also listed as a vendor to the state Department of Human Services, receiving the following payments since its inception:

Charm Home Care is shown to have received more than $140,000 in state funding over the past three years.

In filings submitted to state court in Minnesota, Feeding Our Future claims that Eidleh worked as an independent contractor for the nonprofit, not as an employee. Feeding also believes that Eidleh has left the country (paragraph 34, page 7).

The more you dig, the more you find.