In March 2026, a rumor circulated online that family of former U.S. President Barack Obama opened the $100 million Obama Humanitarian Hope Center in Chicago to provide services to homeless people.
For example, on March 24, a post on Facebook (archived) read:
THE OBAMA FAMILY LAUNCHES A 100 MILLION DOLLAR HUMANITARIAN CAMPAIGN, SPARKING A GLOBAL "TSUNAMI" OF TEARS, HOPE, AND UNSTOPPABLE LOVE ON LIVE TELEVISION! BARACK, MICHELLE, MALIA, AND SASHA OBAMA CREATE ONE OF THE MOST SPECTACULAR CHARITABLE SURGES OF THE DECADE: THE OBAMA HUMANITY HOPE CENTER RISES IN CHICAGO LIKE A 12-STORY BEACON OF DIGNITY, TRANSFORMING THE LIVES OF THOUSANDS OF HOMELESS INDIVIDUALS FROM DESPAIR INTO HOPE.
The post included an image that claimed to show the Obama family cutting a ribbon outside a large building.
The next day, one Facebook user shared a post making the same claim across six Facebook groups at the same time on (archived, archived, archived, archived, archived, archived). Those posts included a link to an article dated March 25 — more on this below. Snopes readers contacted us to ask whether the rumor was true.
We first used search engines such as Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo (archived, archived, archived, archived) to locate possible evidence from credible sources about the "Obama Humanity Hope Center." If the story was true, journalists with reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters, would have widely reported on it. That was not the case. News about the center also did not appear on the Obama Foundation's website.
The rumor was fictional. It appeared to originate from the Facebook page Serpent of Rock and a blog page that used artificial intelligence tools to create inspiring or shocking stories about public figures. Therefore, we've rated this claim false.
Creators of such content capitalize on social media users' willingness to believe and share the made-up stories, profiting from advertising revenue on external websites to which the posts link. (Snopes has previously reported on the business strategy.)
We contacted a manager of the Serpent of Rock Facebook page to ask whether it had created the false story about the Obama Humanity Hope Center without a disclaimer to note its inauthenticity. We will update this story if we receive a response.
Some posts spreading the false rumor about the Obama Humanitarian Hope Center included a link at the bottom of the caption to an article on an advertisement-filled blog.
Both the article and social media posts had several indications of being AI-generated text. For example, the article used capital letters and bold type to attract attention to specific words or sentences. Traditional news reporting does not generally utilize capital letters or bolding in this way. GPTZero, a tool that aims to detect AI-generated text, determined with 100% certainty that text from the blog post and two Facebook posts was generated by AI.
The images that circulated alongside the claims also had obvious signs of the use of AI. Serpent of Rock's image showed an audience member holding an incomplete U.S. flag and used an old version of Obama's logo from his 2008 presidential campaign.
Another image circulating in other Facebook posts showed people in the audience holding signs with misspelled or nonsensical words. In both images, the name of the alleged building — "The Obama Center for Homeless Support" and "The Obama Chicago Homeless Support Center" — did not match the reported "Obama Humanity Hope Center."
(Image courtesy of Serpent of Rock and Lois Crosby on Facebook, illustrated by Snopes)
The fictional story about the Obama family resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as "stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental."
Snopes has debunked similar rumors before. For example, in February 2026, we debunked a fake photo that claimed to show Obama dining with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. We've also investigated another altered photo that spread baseless claims about Michelle Obama being a man.