San Francisco, California - December 25, 2007 -
There Was No Christmas Breakfast for the Homeless San Francisco Residents Staying At the Gough Street Church - Winter Shelter (St. Mary's Cathedral).
SF City InterFaith Winter Shelter Program operated by ECS ( Episcopal Community Services ) gave the homeless guests staying at St. Mary's Cathedral at 1111 Gough Street, an early morning, Christmas Day Surprise, this year.
When the homeless guests were woken up at 5:30am, they were told by ECS Staff/Volunteers, - Sorry, but you do not get any Christmas Day Breakfast, today. The cooks did not come in today. -
We've received many conflicting reports about exactly why there was no breakfast, today, this Christmas Day 2007, for the Church's homeless and poor guests.
Some staff and shelter guests say that cooks or volunteers (not the visiting Church Member Volunteers who were 'fantasticly nice to the homeless').
Only some ECS Staff, the Site Manager/Supervisors and ECS Volunteers were mentioned negatively (by other staff, guests and witnesses reporting here).
Guests were told that 'the cooks' just did not show up today, so the guests were asked to leave the overcrowded church, early this morning, without coffee or breakfast which the InterFaith Flyers had promised. Not even a snack or a cup of coffee. Merry Christmas, huh ?
Others say that ECS had no intention of providing a Christmas Breakfast, so no staff or volunteers were scheduled. [ and no advance notice given to shelter guests either ]
In any event, this Christmas Morning, our most needy residents left the shelter without food or drink, to start off their Christmas Day..
Several reports of ongoing abuse, neglect and lack of organization and 'people skills' have been following an ECS Supervisor named Antoine or Antwayn who has not been able to properly coordinate the 'entrance lines' to the shelter sites, being only 80 people at the last site ( Episcopal Trinity Church ) and now the current winter shelter site, St. Mary's Cathedral, having about 100 shelter residents.
In fact, racial slurs and jokes by ECS Senior Staff and 'clear hatred, contempt and arguing' against other staff members and against the homeless shelters clients, have been reported several times, by clients and trained observers, since the winter shelter program opened a few weeks ago.
The main cause now, of ongoing, multiple, repetitive complaints, seems to be centered around the ECS Site Supervisor (Antoine/Antwayn) who has made loud, public statements of hatred and contempt towards homeless clients, The City of San Francisco, whistleblowers.
Even a member of the Shelter Monitoring Committee, who bore witness as a 'regular shelter client' whom was not there on official committee business; when he, too received the brunt of several condescending, hated-filled remarks uttered by this ECS Supervisor. The Supervisor's conduct was outrageous.
All of this hatred on the part of an ECS 'Supervisor' on Christmas Eve -- without any apparent cause or provocation in front of about 120 homeless residents, waiting outside, in the cold.
This abusive behavior by staff and supervisors at homeless shelters, has been going on with the same shelter providers and often the same staff, for many years, now.
These known patterns of behavior by staff being paid with tax payer dollars, makes the best case story for the need for Hiring Standards, Performance Standards and Random Drug Testing for Shelter Staff and Supervisors.
Obviously, this Supervisor was upset and has been upset and 'taking it out' on his co-workers, shelter guests and apparently, anyone he wants to without proper supervision by ECS or The Church to prevent harm and abuse.
Can't we, as a unified, thoughful, intelligent, respectful community do better than this ?
What has to be done, in order to insure that people and non-profits that receive tax funding and donations treat everyone in our community, with reasonable dignity, respect and some sense of decency and humanity ?
[ Preliminary Complaints are outlined below. Details to follow. ]
Per SFGOV.ORG Website Link:
[ http://sfgov.org/site/mayor_index.asp?id=71056 ]
Dates of Site Operation: Dec 23�" Jan 17, 2007-2008
Site Name: St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1111 Gough
Operator: Episcopal Community Svcs. ( ECS )
Site Supervisor: Antwayn
Line Up Access Time: 6:30PM
Doors To Open At: 7:00PM ( or earlier if colder )
Curfew Bed Drop: 7:15PM
Services Contracted: Dinner and Breakfast provided
MAJOR ISSUES:
Multiple repeat acts of abuse, negligence, escalation of conflict, hate speech on the part of Same Staff, Same Supervisor, Same Shelter Provider, Multiple Sites.
New reports of non-provision of food, extremely cramped and unsafe over-capacity, unsanitary/health risk conditions, human rights violations and possible theft of resources destined for winter shelter residents (elderly, disabled, mentally/physically ill, homeless and veterans).
This Operator and Supervisor both have similiar previous, recent complaints reported by several dozen homeless clients, witnesses and staff, since Interfaith Winter Shelter Program Opened, to date, Christmas Day.
Numerous Breaches of Contract, Staff/Supervisor Dis-respect and blatant contempt shown towards homeless residents, elderly, mentally ill, other staff, volunteers and persons suffering traumas that are prone to seizures and suicidal tendencies. That can easily be triggered by undue stress, abuse, violence or lack of organization or with the presence of stress that comes from having large numbers of people, in confined spaces.
Later in the night, several reports of severe coughing with little or no attention by staff. No known reports of required 'excessive cough' reports by shelter staff in accordance with health and hygiene rules and guidelines set by SF Department of Health.
This is A Preliminary Summary - [ To be transcripted into formal, registered complaints and Petitions at a later date ], to wit :
On or about December 24th, 2007, the following items were duly observed, noted and reported, as follows [ detail to follow ]:
- Lack of adequate set-up and supervision of simple entrance lines and 'ticket checking' causing commotion and lengthy delays in getting people 'in out of the cold'.
Causes hostility and anxiety and is a bad example to set staff conflicts in front of anxious residents.
Victims of recent crimes and violence start to become very agitated and nervous. Some clients leave shelter to find peace and calm.
Their contractural, statutory and human right to quiet enjoyment of their shelter stay has been violated repeatedly by shelter staff and supervisors lack of skill, competence, experience and caring whose conduct and contractural duties have been performed in a megligent manner, in violation of City Shelter Contracts and law.
3. Lack of Supervisor and Staff Respect towards residents.
4. Lack of Supervisor respect towards City agencies and committees dedicated to serving the community.
5. Failure to show proper direction to confused residents who were given contradictory instructions to enter and then exit the building without proper explanation.
They were told 'I do not give a fuck if you go left or right or get the fuck away from here. I do not care about you. I do not give a fuck what anyone puts in their little city reports. I do not have any dignity or respect for none of you motherfuckers here
right now' and other words to that affect.
6. Failure to maintain order and affect an orderly entrance into the facility. Creating a safety hazard.
7. Failure to plan, provide or give notice to residents that Breakfast was NOT going to be served on Christmas Day due to lack of planned event by ECS or The Church.
8. Failure to allow cold, hungry residents timely access to shelter. Shelter opened late.
Management failed to maintain order and caused great stress, hositility and anxiety because of his disrespectful, agressive and negative predispostion, demeanor, hostility and outright hatred and contempt for the homeless residents.
The Supervisors speech, demeanor and hostile conduct was repeated and demonstrated 'bad faith' on the part of ECS, as it was again directed with hatred towards both 'The City of San Francisco" as party to the contract and a member of the
Shelter Monitoring Committee, who was present that night in his status as simply a homeless shelter resident who had not spoken much (keeping a low profile to just enjoy Christmas Eve).
That shelter resident was ;called out', first by that ECS Supervisor and whose character was personally attacked and ridiculed without just cause, by the ECS Supervisor, in front of all of the residents causing some fear mixed with hostility towards Supervisor, Staff and ECS, as an organization.
Committee Member refrained from responding to Supervisors inappropriate and offensive behavior. But did notify other staff and city agencies of what was witnessed, first hand.
And attempted to calm down the residents and agree to support their legitimate complaints, as a first hand witness.
9. Lack of professionalism and hostile behavior by Supervisor gave rise to 'panic attacks' on 2 physically/mentally ill residents and even others that were not ill, become hostile and angry.
10. Residents gave sound, polite advice for Supervisor to just ask everyone with tickets to hold up theirs and move left and all others without tickets to move right.
Several helpful and knowledgeable (from prior experience) suggestions by the homeless residents and were ignored and ridiculed by Supervisor.
11. Instead of using 'time tested' historically proven correct and proper methods of 'basic ticket checking, line setup and safe crowd control ' well known' to many old time homeless persons that had been going to that particular location many times over several years.
This new, unorganized and chaotic 'method' used by this ECS Supervisor was the opposite of the regular procedure that used to actually keep everyone out of the cold and get them in faster and safer.
Prior year's methods also kept out all non-ticket holders by having one person a ways outside the door, checking for tickets; prior to entering facility (lobby hall).
And a table in the lobby hallway to double check tickets, organize and control the orderly flow of residents into the kitchen, dining and sleeping areas.
This method used by Supervisor this time and at the previous Winter Shelter Location at Trinity Church, have resulted in wasted space, time, energy, resources and forced everyone to remain outside until about 7:38p or 7:48p, in the cold,
confused. And with lots of conflict.
Also, when residents tried to sign their names next to the 'line number' on the sign in sheet that corresponds to their Ticket Number, they were told 'not to do that'.
They were told to 'sign in' onto any next blank line, on the official sign in sheet.
Later, several residents that lost tickets, were unable to use the lists to verify their 'non-use' or 'mis-use' of their number, simply because staff and supervisor failed to maintain a 'normal' list that has one numbered line per numbered ticket.
Built in lack of accountability for 'checking tickets' for reasons unknown that did cause harm and confusion for the shelter guests that wanted to be accounted in the proper order.
It is well known that tickets have been 'resold' for as much as $50 and $100 and without proper line management, planning, sign in sheet accounting, one cannot have any peace, sense of order, accountability or contractural compliance, due solely to lack of proper behaviors and following known procedures on the part of staff and management.
All of this has caused harm and abuse to the shelter guests and are violations of contractural and moral obligations to 'take reasonable care' of the residents, the facilities and to maintain 'dignity and respect' for shelter residents and not to do anything that violates health, safety, fire and building codes and laws.
12. Only approximately 40 jackets were given out and instead of giving them on a truly 'first come first serve basis' everyone that had waited longest and were inside
in the correct order, got shoved back in the chaos.
The chaos initially started do to a late opening of the doors and later escalated greatly, when this Supervisor forced everyone out with abusive, threatening and demeaning verbal commands.
And did so without proper and clear advanced instructions, coordination, planning or orderly execution which allowed all kinds of people to 'get ahead' of the others ( line cutting that was reported against same provider and staff at the last site ago ) that had been waiting the longest.
Several staff members also 'took their jackets first' instead of giving them to others in greater need. Altogether about sixty or more guests failed to receive a jacket.
Although is has been noted and reported that staff members of other ECS Shelters also received the identical jackets from the same purchase or donation that was reportedly intended as 'Christmas Gifts' for the homeless shelter residents who
are indigent, elderly, disabled and mostly poor in resources.
FULL DETAILS AND REGISTERED REPORTS AND PETITIONS SHALL BE FILED WHEN ALL INTERVIEWS ARE COMPLETED.
ALL GOOD SHELTER RESIDENTS, STAFF, MEMBERS OF CITY AGENCIES, COMMUNITY GROUPS AND OTHER SAN FRANCISCO RESIDENTS ARE INVITED TO SHARE THEIR OWN OBSERVATIONS, TIPS AND MATERIALS ON THESE ISSUES VIA EMAIL TO: sfhomeless@yahoo.com
You will be issued a copy of the public version of final reports.
---- end of preliminary report ---
cc: DPH, HSA, SMC, COH, Applicable Church Councils, SFPD
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