Several formerly homeless people — each drawn into an Aurora-based enterprise known as “The Program” that promised free housing and cash in return for letting a home-health business administer prescriptions they were given — said they were pressed into signing nondisclosure agreements about the arrangement just days before Medicaid suspended the agency amid investigations into alleged fraud.

At least four participants told The Denver Gazette they were threatened with eviction last week if they didn’t sign the agreements. Each of them said they signed, adding they knew others who did the same.

It’s unclear how many others were pushed to sign or which of the several business entities involved in the enterprise was pressing for the signatures. “The Program” operates in about a half-dozen homes sprinkled across eastern Aurora, each with about eight residents. The Denver Gazette could not independently confirm the contents of the document.

The NDAs appeared on June 12, the participants said, as they were visited by workers who doled out $50 gift cards and were administered medications they were prescribed.

The Denver Gazette last month exposed the two-year-old enterprise, laying out how dozens of homeless people had been recruited, frequently by each other, and how the home health agency behind it, On Going Home Health Care, has been paid at least $24 million in Medicaid dollars since it began.

A newly created church by relatives and associates of On Going HHC — Maranatha Indonesian-American Seventh-day Adventist Church — was purportedly the source of the thrice-weekly $50 “donations” to each program participant, while a third business, Better Living, oversaw the housing at about a half-dozen homes sprinkled across eastern Aurora.

The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing on Tuesday told On Going HHC it had suspended it from the Medicaid program, citing “credible allegations of fraud” it found during an investigation it launched following The Denver Gazette stories. The suspension is effective until the investigation is completed.

The residents who spoke with The Denver Gazette refused to be named because of their worries about the NDA they said they signed.

Representatives for the two businesses and the church did not immediately respond to efforts to reach them for comment.

The newspaper’s investigation has begun to draw attention in political circles, including Gov. Jared Polis, who said the state’s inquiries continue.

“Governor Polis and the State of Colorado take any instance of waste, fraud or abuse of taxpayer money seriously, and this case remains under investigation,” spokesperson Eric Maruyama said in an email. “The state is ready to assist in any way to hold anyone who abuses taxpayer dollars accountable.”

The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) had previously confirmed investigations were also being conducted by the FBI, while Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment had similarly confirmed it had launched its own inquiry.

A HCPF spokesman did not have an immediate comment about the latest development regarding the NDAs.

Ownership of On Going HHC is the subject of a lawsuit in Arapahoe County, in which its founders — Seska Bell, Kopila Dhungana and Roy Gultom — are asserting they are entitled to its business profits, which would include those derived from “The Program.” Gultom sued the two women whom he accuses of shutting him out. He said he was unaware of “The Program,” while Bell and Dhungana have refused to discuss it. The case is set for trial in October.

The Denver Gazette’s investigation comes on the heels of a variety of Medicaid-related problems in Colorado, including millions of dollars in overpayments to transportation companies that, in some cases, took homeless people for medical appointments unrelated to “The Program.”

That prompted the legislature this year to create a 10-member Commission on Medicaid composed of five state senators and five representatives. It’s an interim committee tasked with coming up with ways to implement a sustainable Medicaid program in the state. The committee has held two informational meetings and is scheduled to meet again July 6.

The Denver Gazette also revealed how the homeless recruits were required to visit the same doctor in Aurora, Dr. Arthur Ferrer at Family Medicine of the Rockies, who was also On Going HHC’s medical director.

The suspension came the same day the U.S. Justice Department announced criminal charges against 455 people nationwide as part of a health care fraud crackdown allegedly involving more than $6.5 billion in bogus claims to Medicaid and other insurers.

That crackdown — dubbed the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown — included a doctor who allegedly charged for meaningless cardiovascular screenings for student athletes, a nurse practitioner who allegedly billed for unnecessary wound care procedures and a hospice owner who allegedly paid kickbacks to a funeral home employee for information about deceased Medicaid beneficiaries.

About 1.3 million Coloradans are enrolled in Medicaid, which is administered through Health First Colorado. About 333,000 of them are low-income adults without dependent children.