Common Knowledge: Most every single place of business cares about issues & complaints regarding interpersonal relations and customer service; they all offer assistance by providing email addresses and website contact forms for online venting...in person, if & when you ask for a supervisor you get one, one who listens and then addresses the problems to their personnel - and even apologizes to you to boot! Hell, even welfare departments in every State have a toll-free number to call for every question and issue...most all form letter & mailing offer hearing and grievance procedures providing opportunities for those who need to rectify issues -- this is LIFE! Most all retail chains, supermarkets & drugstores (such as CVS & Kinney Drugs, Kmart and Starbucks etc) have 800 numbers and direct email addresses to their Customer Service Departments for customers to report a complaint or concern - one is then immediately responded to with an apology and a way they will rectify the issue... Another great example of my understandable point is that you could be arrested &/or in jail and you still have the right to file a complaint on the way you were treated and it will be addressed by officials...there would be an investigation etc...
Well, as we all know, NO complaint concern is ever swept under the rug or ignored (unless you are dealing with a very shady or illegal place of business)!! I feel strongly or know that had all the issues been taken into account, to begin with, and then the simple matters resolved so that the very mission of Champlain Housing Trust, as well as that of Women Helping Battered Women AND CVOEO/Community Action been upheld and adhered to >> me & my Son would never have had to live through what we did and lose everything, literally. There were tons of complaints from so many guests from the get go soon after Harbor Place opens!...
After five long months of being at Harbor Place, there were FINALLY complaints from me! Interestingly I did not know at the time, but it was almost immediately after the Legal Aid Complaint matter concluded with CHT...then the trouble started for us and I had no problem contacting the upper management with any concerns for the next four months of our living at Harbor Place.
All the Harbor Place/Champlain Housing Trust complaints were repeatedly & systematically ignored, all of them from other guests, from Legal Aid representing other concerned people, and all of them from me - my in-person talks of concern, my voicemail messages and my emails...
Based on my own experience and what I know; what I overheard and what many people shared with me: it is a fact that people (myself included) naturally complained to anyone who would listen:
- of course, they spoke to their so-called case workers at Harbor Place, this includes
- Women Helping Battered Women
- CVOEO and
- Safe Harbor
--- who where hearing stories over and over all day everyday for months!...
- they complained at COTS (if one had affiliation there, such as a case manager)...
- they complained and complained at the Economic Services office (asking & begging not to be placed at Harbor Place) they complained, of course, to their Vermont State welfare "Reach Up" workers
- again, of course, they expressed concerns to their Howard Center mental health workers & counselors (if they had one) they asked and begged the people placing them by phone on Vermont 211
- people called up Vermont Legal Aid to complain & get assistance
- people who knew about it & had the number, called the Governers Hotline to complain
- people told me they even called the Women Helping Battered Women Hotline to express concern and get
- "help" (myself included on this one!...all to no avail, of course, just false talks & listening per as usual from the inexperienced and unconcerned management)
- the families involved with DCF Family Service workers, of course, complained (I know of two people who told me their stories and that they "told their workers about it") >>> basically any Social Service worker and Agency in their lives...why not, it is what they were going through, so venting on it and sharing their concerns would help them right? Wrong.
AND FINALLY:
- THE LEGAL AID COMPLAINTS! There was also the outlet of complaining to Vermont Legal Aid (read all about it on the Legal Aid Complaints Page of this site)
* * * * * *
My questions are very simple, and yet somehow profound because it has eluded too many people of the Town of Shelburne, the people of the Burlington Area & the State of Vermont, the local Press & Media -- for over three whole years !!
>> If CHT cares so much about "helping people" as they repeatedly claim and make statements about when interviewed (and so does Women Helping Battered Women and CVOEO, of course...)
WELL THEN:
1) How/why could any client-customer or guests complaint or concern NOT be important ???
2) Why/how do these valid and serious concerns not matter to a place of business, much less non-profits supposed to be "helping people" ???
3) Why/how is it all so difficult to rectify and remove the obvious & simple issues from the daily business practice?
4) Why/how gloss it over and just pretend that it all never happened nor existed? None of the wrong doings and none of the complaints...
Of course, this includes: MY very own intelligent & valid complaints on the critical issues regarding the Case Management that I finally made in December 2014 - after living at Harbor Place for five whole months at that time; and loving it very much (but getting little to no "case management" at all) !!...
And then, as months went on, there were my concerning complaints of wrong doings & mistreatment to me and my 9yr old Son, that I had begun regularly reporting to upper CHT management via voicemails left to the two upper managers and in person at the office if/when I saw them & had an issue of concern to share...then finally, via email in defense of my 30day kick-out ban -- and ultimately during my two whole hours Appeal Meeting...(more on this later).. I basically shared all the real trouble that started with us bigtime in January and continuing all the way to April 2015 when we had to leave!!...**(see the other blog posts on this Site for more on this)
* * * * * *
!! STAY TUNED FOR MORE ON THESE IMPORTANT TOPICS
& SO MUCH MORE,
HERE ON THIS SITE & WITHIN
*THE HARBOR PLACE STORES PROJECT* !!
...and ON OUR PODCAST SERIES: VTpoverty
Visit & LIKE our Facebook Page
>> facebook.com/HarborPlaceStories
