Well, the next few days after Christmas were even colder and more hectic for the guests of the Winter Shelter Program in San Francisco, out perated by Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco which is currently using the site at St. Mary's Cathedral at 1111 Gough St., in the winter wonderland of San Francisco, CA.
Apparently, after The City received complaints, they sent out some people to check out the conditions for themselves.On this night, the shelter guests were served a very nice dinner and they were very grateful for that.
But, as soon as they tried to sit down to eat, they were handed 'Survey Forms' for fill out and there were people buzzing around the room with cameras taking pictures.
Luckily, the guests were not too distracted with the cameras and fan fare, as they were given some extra presents, which did not succeed in distracting them too much , so as to not fill in their surveys.
We've been told by several eyewitnesses that about 40 or more complaints or feedback surveys, were given back to the HSA representative, whom may be a contract compliance person, overseeing the City's tax funded shelters (contracted, with contracts that say 'all guests must be treated with dignity and respect. It's a breach of their word, every time Shelter Staff and especially Supervisors, break that agreement.)
That's aside from another handful of these confidential surveys that we were told, the ECS Supervisor/Manager Antoine had taken and read. And hopefully, passed directly on to HSA without sharing the contents of those complaints (investigations) with other staff or supervisors at ECS. That would be a whole mess of 'bad faith' on the part of people being paid by our tax dollars and community dontations.
The tired and hungry shelter guests, filled their surveys out, as best they could making great mention of how much they despised the InterFaith Winter Shelter Program Manager/Supervisor from ECS named Antoine or Antwayn (we still can't get his name yet ).
In fact, so many guests filled out surveys that by the time the HSA (Human Services Agency) representive left, there were still a handful of surveys that had not been turned in... Everyone else turned them into a secure box to protect privacy and keep them intact until they were opened later, at the City Agency Offices.
Well, just so happens that the ECS Supervisor saw the homeless guests with the Surveys that were NOT turned in and he took them and started to read them, right there in front of other ECS Staff and all of the other homeless guests.
He was real upset because most of the negative comments (based on interviews and converfsations with a whole lot of homeless guests) were about him !! And here he is the subject of the complaints, taking control of official San Francisco City's HSA Complaint Forms, totally violating Privacy Rights and City Shelter Policies on shelter resident's privacy rights.
A very dangerous situation that could and may have led to retaliation by this ECS Supervisor/Manager against all of the homeless guests, the very next night...
This retaliation scenario may have been played out the next night when the guests were served (not with a good meal like the night before) with a single scoop of 'rigatoni', as several homeless guests put it.
Not to mention the 'line trampling' incident in which once again, this same ECS Manager/Supervisor turned up the heat when the homeless guest tried to line up and again, this 'Antoine' did not manage his line correctly and he was so abusive of the guests, that a racial slur was uttered by the homelss guests (tired of his abusive and unprofessionalways) which caused him to react violently (telling everyone near him to get out of the line) which eventually caused a 'run' for the doors, in which 3 people fell donw and two homeless guests were 'trampled underfoot' on the stairs and in the line leading into the Church entrance.
So, we have been writing about this ECS Supervisor ever since we got reports about his escalating, violent demeanor back at Episcopal Trinity Church and since he was not able to 'get that line together' because in part, due to a large group of latinos, we predicted that unless he changed his ways or ECS did something to upgrade the professional oversight of that line, there would be an escalation of violence (and along racial lines).
So, here we are a month later, and this known incompetent, untrusted man is still 'doing the same thing' causing known, preventable abuse,violence and harm to the homeless guests of the churches.
We keep asking, WHY ?
When are the people at ECS going to 'start listening' and start hiring better people for Supervisors and Managers ?
How many abuses are the homeless going to suffer before they (ECS) gets this right ?
They may be asking themselves (ECS) 'what does these homeless people want ? When are they going to be satisfied and stop their complaining ?'
When homeless people are treated with dignity and respect and are managed by good staff that 'really care' then we are happy to off of the streets and are really easily satisfied.
But, when we are yelled at by people that obviously 'do not care' about us and supervisors that obviously 'do not respect their own staff and yell at them too, in front of us' then what do you expect ?
If we were in charge of managing YOU.
And instead of being nice to you and speaking to you like a responsible adult and instead of showing you how much we care about YOU, we were to scream at you, call you names and treat you like a dog, then we would expect you call us on it. EVERYONE in this City deserves dignity and respect.
When you try to 'dominate' and 'intimidate' people in a physical way, you do not get respect you get fear and anger which later turns to violence.
You (ECS) keep hiring people with 'thug like' control freak mentalities and that will never work. Never has worked.
Then you hire nice, well respected new guys like 'Eduardo' (who also gave it to Antoine because of Antoine's mistreatment of him, other staff and shelter clients) and that other new guy, the big one (Kent?) and when they started out, they were very nice and respectful of the homeless guests and the homeless people responded favorably to both of those men, because we ll 'felt' that in their hearts, they cared about us.
Many of us have known them for a long time and if they asked us to 'jump' we would say 'how high, sir' because we trusted and respected them because they trusted and treated us with Respect and Dignity.
Now, this new guy, Ken, that's his name, the day after Antoine pulled his lillte power trip stunt that caused people to get trampled, Ken's attitude has 'gone down' and he is starting to 'become like Antoine' which makes us all very sad.
Ken told everyone to leave almost an hour early because 'he was worn out' and being burnt out because him and the other ECS staff obviously cannot stand the way that Atoine operates. We just found out that Eduardo was fired because of Antoine. What a friggin joke.
Eduardo would have been one of ECS's best supervisors (in time) because he used respect and 'real caring' to keep the homeless people together and calmed down.
People like Antoine can only seem to 'intimidate' people which always comes back on them because Karma is a real bitch, especially when you mistreat people that need love and respect, not hatred and intimdation.
Treat us with respect and ask us what you want us to do, and we will usually do it.
Disrespect us and yall at us and we will resent you and work together to get better services for ourselves, in spite of you.
When will ECS get it right ? We're talking about hiring standards again...
Stay tuned.....
01-08-2008 EDITING NOTES: We made some corrections to this blog posting. editWe clarified that guests freely filled out their forms and that had nothing to do with the gifts. The way it was before was grammtically correct but didn't 'read right'.
The text was bad and there was no intent to infer that the gifts had anything to do with preventing people from doing their surveys. We just hope the other handful made it to HSA. Which is what we also added, to this blog post.
Enjoy this New Year ! Rock 'n Roll & Rythm 'n Blues.... with a lil' salsa mixed in!
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