A Trinity man who is executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Polk County was booked on multiple charges last week for incidents allegedly occurring in the workplace.
Livingston Police arrested Jason Barron David, 43, on charges of indecent assault and harassment after complaints from employees and witnesses. The victim, Laura Kingman (née Kloesel), was said to have reported the problem several times.
An attorney for Kingman released this statement to the Enterprise:
“From approximately August 30, 2024, through January 2025, Ms. Kloesel was subject to numerous acts of sexual harassment by Jason Barron, the Director of Habitat for Humanity of Polk County. Barron physically assaulted Ms. Kloesel on at least three occasions. Ms. Kloesel reported each assault to the Habitat Board and that Barron was sexually harassing her and creating a hostile work environment for her and other female employees. Ms. Kloesel reported multiple times to multiple board members and spoke to Habitat HR on multiple occasions. Yet, Habitat and the Board did nothing and continue to do nothing.
“In fact, even after his arrest on criminal charges related to his harassment and assault of Ms. Kloesel, Barron is still working in the Habitat ReStore. That is simply appalling. How many more young women have to be sexually harassed or assaulted at work before Habitat and the Board take action? Why do they refuse to act?”
Former employees of Habitat for Humanity of Polk County say there are several issues within the organization in addition to sexual harassment.
Heidi Barnes worked at the Habitat ReStore from July 2023 to March of 2024. When hired, she was told the organization had been struggling for years.
“The board was so corrupt,” she said. “I tried to bring in some new board members and they fought me on that. The reason is that they were doing things behind the scenes that were not legal and not OK.
“When I started there, they (the board) had told me about two volunteers that used to volunteer at the ReStore,” Barnes said. “They used to go pick up furniture and donations. They did that using the Habitat truck and trailer, and then they proceeded to stop at a Mexican restaurant and have a couple of margaritas – enough that when they got back, they could tell that they were drunk. So, they were asked not to return. They (the board) tried to play it off like she only had one drink, but regardless, she was driving the Habitat vehicle.”
Yet, according to Barnes, they would be back after being asked not to return. One was later voted in as board president, who then brought back the other volunteer to work in the ReStore after Barnes was fired.
“When I was there, and the reason they fired me was, we had a board meeting on a Thursday evening,” Barnes said. “They had already voted (her) in as the president with only three of the board members. At that time, there were eight. By the bylaws, they were not allowed to do that, but they didn’t follow the bylaws at all. They had a closed board meeting at a board member’s office. The others were not included or invited.”
Barnes let the other board members know how the new president was elected.
The other volunteer Barnes said was drinking while representing Habitat and would later be hired to work the ReStore was also said to be involved in misrepresenting herself to obtain free donations.
“We used to do stuff with Lowe’s, because Habitat Nationwide collaborates with Lowe’s to get donations and things like that,” Barnes explained. “We hadn’t been getting any, so I went in and made an appointment to talk to the manager. He said, ‘Oh yes, we would love to work with you.’”
However, the Lowe’s manager in charge of donations later called the ReStore. That manager said a lady had been calling weekly and picking up the donations as a representative of Habitat.
The problem, Barnes said, is that she was neither an employee, volunteer nor affiliated with Habitat at the time of receiving these donations.
Funds were also reportedly missing, that Barnes says occurred before her employment at Habitat. She contacted a lawyer in case fingers were pointed for the missing money.
“From my understanding, there are lawyers now involved in everything, so they may be going down,” Barnes said. “They need to be shut down. At the board meeting, I had said, ‘I am done waiting for you guys to figure out, or hire someone to figure out, where this money is. I need questions answered.’ I told them that if it didn’t happen, that is fine, but that I would be contacting International (headquarters), because this is not right.”
The morning after Barnes told the board she would take the missing funds issue to International, she was fired.
“The vice president of the board, at that time, came walking in with a police officer,” Barnes said. “He told me he needed to see me in the back. He told me to leave everything, and I was done.”
Barnes feels her employment was terminated for acting as a whistleblower.
“It says right in our bylaws that you can’t do anything to somebody who does that. There have been several executive directors before me that have quit. One in particular, I talked to him. He quit for that exact reason. They were not following the bylaws and they were not doing anything to get toward building a house for somebody. They built one, I think, a year before I started. But, before that, I think it had been a good three or four years since they had built one.”
Kingman and Barnes worked together at the ReStore.
“Laura had reached out to me at the end of December or the beginning of January,” Barnes said. “She was my lead person and pretty much the manager of the resale store. She contacted me and I told her, ‘Do not stay there. You need to go, because it is going to get worse and worse.’ She wished she had listened to me now; I was talking to her this week.
“She contacted me and told me that the new executive director had made several sexual comments to her, very gross and just not OK. At that point, she had told the board members. The board members – they don’t do anything and they don’t act on anything. They just kind of say, ‘OK, we’ll look into it,’ and never did. She ended up quitting because she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Then, he (Barron) also made a comment to her about a service person that had to come and do community service. She was 16. He made the comment of how he would love to be able to – basically, have sex with her. Not in those exact terms, but, you know.”
Attempts to contact Barron were not returned as of press time. The Enterprise will have more on this story as information becomes available.
