AC Challenges - UPDATE

 

Why do you do all that volunteer work?

       There are people here who seriously believe I am nuts because I do so much "volunteer work." 

       At this point, it's tempting to do a re-post of my letters to the Staff on Saturday and Sunday during this heatwave in Washington, DC that has once again caused the air-conditioning (A/C) unit to start overflowing with water from the air-distribution box. 

       As I detailed last summer, it is basically a problem with the type of unit they installed, that at its base there is no drip pan, and they never bother to try to do a DIY type of fix that might connect to the drip-condensate line that also drains from the A/C on the third floor just above. 

The maintenance person drains the distribution box and replaces the wet moldy filter

 

   As a result, every summer, the air filter shown above is replaced a few times because it becomes moist, wet, and moldy from the drip condensate leaking into the air-distribution box. And that's all they do because "anything else is outside the contract."

    I suppose eventually they may write in that residents should just sit on their hands and do nothing, but then, they know very well that on the weekends, when the Catholic Charities Facilities / Staff does not answer the phone, respond to calls, the water may overflow and cause the dining room ceiling to collapse. The warped bending wood also leaks and flows water onto the dining room floor. 

      So in one of my innumerable "extra chores" in the house, I have taken to dry-vaccuuming the air-distribution box myself, because I don't like the dining room dangerously wet, I don't like the electrical wires to get wet, I don't like the overflow in the distribution box to make the second floor wet either. 

Thanks to my efforts, the leaks through the ceiling have been minimal so far

 

 

    Thanks to my efforts, the leaks through the dining room ceiling from the A/C unit and conduits just above have been minimal so far this summer. So why am I writing about this? Because it is sad that I undertake to do this kind of unpaid work, notify the staff, and hear nothing back. It is worse when N-a reports to work on Sunday evening as Program Assistant and sometimes is impossible to approach. 

     I also asked in email that N-a furnish the house with more kitchen bags because we are out, and the garbage was piling up in the kitchen, because that person does her chore on-and-off. I had done it for her a few times, and now she takes it for granted that I will "pick up where she left off." That's why I shouldn't do chores for people because they just decide to leave the rest for me to do.

    Other obnoxious chore that I do include emptying the cigarette butt cans outside on the patio . There are about four of them, and due to a few chain smokers here, they fill up and then the rain also fills them with grey water. The designated chore person never does her chore. If I do it and then tell her, she will dismiss me, and if I complain about her not doing her chore, she seethes and rages against me.

    Then also in the email to staff, I told them that someone, E-a, leaves the windows wide open in the basement, in the stairwell, in the bathrooms. She has a mania for her style of cleanliness, so it doesn't register to her that this warm air causes an updraft and makes the A/C work harder, and also moistens the air and increases the condensate, eg. collection of water visible outside the air conduits.

    This is the same character who wears sunglasses and dark raincoat 24/7 even inside the house and sprays her door tread with Shower Tile Cleaner and outside her door to the point that the wood is stripped of varnish and feels as rough as sandpaper. Again, I told the staff about this and they do nothing. 

    Why do they do nothing? Well, like we mentioned before, everything they do comes from the manuals, the books, the bureaucracy which trains them to follow all kinds of rules that may or may not even be very helpful, or even optimally relevant.

    (It is in the vile nature of these misfortunate employed program assistant, director of administrative management, senior director here to do their best to BAIT this resident. So rather than focus on the problem, they may actually DO AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. The whole rationale behind this evil attitude is that by deliberately ignoring, they hope I will become frustrated, at which point the evil beings will try to escalate and pin this resident down for a WRITE UP. In narcissism theory this is about "catching a big fish" in their predatory mindset because they know I have several college degrees.The staff are great at BAITING like this. So they would rather let the garbage pile up, the leak go on, the ceiling panels warp and paint peeling, and the house in a state of disrepair, if it means they can WRITE ME UP. Imagine if there is a state of emergency, a national emergency. Such vile beings will be the type who are more concerned about the little details about boarding a life boat than about helping people abandon a sinking ship. It is the epitome of small-mindedness but it definitely augments their sense of self-importance because suddenly they have more paper to process, create meeting time about, and follow-up on "the case." So right now, I definitely sense they are full throttle BAITING ME just because it's possible they can try to get me upset about the leaky A/C. Like I said, they are infinitely more excited about the possibility of frustrating residents than doing their job properly! And this is further reinforced through training that is opaque, secretive, and fills them with conceit.)

      Take the "Emergency Preparedness Plan" posted with about twenty other notices posted at the Client Information Board.The numbers do not work on the weekends for the presumed contacts. The contact people have changed from a few years ago. These contact numbers are what one would get from the DC government pages, such as how to contact the police, poison control, DC Water, emergency service numbers, etc. There is a lot of fluff, but the basic instructions in any emergency are either 1) shelter-in-place or 2) call 9-1-1 or 3) call staff.

    Incidentally, there are so many signs posted about the house now that you can't look any direction hardly and not see a sign. Just to exit there are at least (4) signs taped on the doors. For instance each door that is used in fire drill has at least (4) signs: 1) map of the house, 2) Emergency Exit sign in white, 3) Emergency exit spanish sign, 4) Red/White sign saying "Exit." (I am waiting for them to post additional signs in other languages and maybe pictures for those who are minimally literate).

    Anyway, those are probably requirements to meet the expectations of the Fire Department, because they don't want people to jump out the window in a real fire.

    But this is a microcosm, the milieu of living inside DC, where there are so many layers of bureaucracy and oversight committees, and people who still have jobs and careers to defend whether at Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, DC Government, Catholic Charities, and so on.

    However they seem to be living in Cloud 9 when it comes to pragmatism. They don't see the clients here, and my suggestions (often from experience) are overlooked and ignored. Their way of viewing me is "Well, you are just a client, so you have mental and physical disabilities, so we can't take anything you say for real." That really is their attitude, and they rather live in their safe bureaucratic bubble, even if it means sitting inside in their office and never taking exercise. 

    My suggestions have included putting up a bike rack for the 4-5 gals who are brave enough to own a bike and save on transportation costs. Patching up the water gouged pavement from the drip pipe (from the same A/C system) draining near the storage shed. It's really visible, and sometimes the drain becomes clogged and there is an unsightly puddle there. I've mentioned it several times, that it can be patched with maybe some grout, or asphalt, or extra concrete. Mostly my suggestions are round-filed---the Director has never heard of those suggestions.

    Then the gals here, I guess they wonder why someone like me does extra chores, likes to work in the garden, and whatnot. How do I bridge this gap in understanding and appreciation? I've tried complaining about it, but then it just makes people upset. 

    So here is my take on it. Like it or not, Volunteerism offers its own kind of special intangible rewards. Who asks anyone to feed the sparrows or fill the bird bath? Certainly a waste of time and money per the government. But rewarding when one realizes the birds view this person as a great benefactor, someone they welcome each morning with a cheerful song, and flit around like in a dance.

     And there is a sort of sobering awakening to the deeper meaning to the words "Catholic" and "Charity." Okay, I am not a very good Catholic, more of a Christian, and Buddhist, but I try. And I am not very charitable---not a Jeff Bezos giving huge generous grants away, but I make up for that with my labor. Tzu-Chi Foundation also mentions how much they appreciate the pitching of hands when they build a new schoolhouse in Africa, or renovate an older person's home. 

    So while one faces the scorn and derision that "You are Not Staff, You are Non-Career" one must not hang their head in agreement "Yes, I am a Big Nobody"! No, instead, you should just ignore those kind of lambasting, which actually is very prevalent in American society today. It is in fact at the root of our societal problems, that we just see and value everyone for "who they are, where they work, how much money they make." 

    Those types will not be able to handle a shovel when that day comes because "It is Outside My Grade." They are like robots---unable to be fully human anymore! So it is in our place, as a Catholic Charity Volunteer (and NO, that is not a "label" where I have gone to School, received a certificate, and am inside their System), but meaning really as a "volunteer" to educate and inspire them to deepen their understanding and appreciation of what those words might truly mean.

    Because irregardless of our "advanced education, degrees, certificates" when disaster hits, we really will all need each other. Someone can be good at fixing bikes, someone at building local networks, someone at creating sustainable food gardens, someone at opening up a trading post, someone at mending clothes, someone at creating emergency storage tanks, someone at building solar arrays.

    Unless our hearts and minds are open and flexible, we will act like lemmings rather than be at least half as resilient as the pioneers were in Early America. I really like how TruNews quotes Matthew and Isaiah when Jesus is explaining the parable of the sower for his disciples:

    "And the Prophet of Isaiah is being fulfilled in their case. It says: 'You will indeed hear but by no means get the sense of it, and you will indeed look but by no means see.' For the heart of this people has grown unreceptive, and with their ears they have heard without response, and they have shut their eyes, so that they might never see with their eyes and hear with their ears and get the sense of it with their hearts and turn back when I heal them.

    "However happy are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear. For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things you are observing but did not see them, and to hear the things that you are hearing but did not hear them. 

    "Now listen to the illusration of the man who sowed. Where anyone hears the word of the Kingdom but does not get the sense of it, the wicked one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart; this is the one sown alongside the road." (Matthew 13:14-19)

    So yes, I fully expect that instead of being thanked, there is sort of a rebuff and ignorance against me if I try to bring it up with staff personally. It is viewed as a threat to their manual limitations, their prescriptive boundaries and attempts to limit and categorize the clients as lesser human beings. 

    Instead, I have to just expect, like the many signs they put around the house, that they might view the email, and eventually have a maintenance person come and take a look at the A/C system. It might even take a few days, because who knows how many other Catholic Charities buildings have these problems.

    In fact, I am also heartened by the fact that I do get to go outside and plant some flowers and maintain the garden that I have developed since 2021. An update will be posted on that blog soon!

Client Satisfaction Survey aka Stakeholder Survey -- Public Copy for the Record

 

 

Entranceway Bulletin Board --Ongoing Long-term Project by Sr. Director

Dear Reviewers,
   Thank you for the complex work that you engage in for our behalf. This is my fifth year at Mount Carmel House for women, and I am happy to state that I have tried to continue to contribute to the happiness and well being of residents here. For instance, the therapeutic garden is still being maintained, and this year two shrubs are added to the garden, paid by me out of pocket, in addition to the herbs (rosemary, thyme, chives, strawberry, mint, oregano, etc). These are in pots, and anyone is welcome to take a cutting to try to grow or use.

   Enclosed is the review (stakeholder/client satisfaction survey) and some remarks. We have a new caseworker and the comments are with regard to her, who I will call P. (Paula) to keep things simple and confidential. Please understand, that outside this home, I do have a variety of friends and resources, and even other African-American social-workers who have been very nice, extremely helpful or understanding about disabled people and their needs. So I am not just "inventing stuff" here on purpose. Kim is my neighbor and I am very discreet, however, some of the stuff I draw from, well, you can't help sort of intuiting or overhearing if you are all packed together so closely...

   So I really really hope that you are considerate enough to keep this confidential and "cherrypick" what can be shared with the MCH staff, because they will try to retaliate or plot new ways to try to make my life more miserable here. I mean, I can or should forward this to the homeless care services committee but I will refrain from doing this because P. is new, and maybe the Catholic Charities counseling manual can be amended to include a few more paragraphs about "re-imagining it can also happen to you" as I was taught about in Special Education, that we all suffer or will eventually suffer from disabilities.

    Thank you very much for reading all this, and I know that you have tried to help us in the past, even if we are not always aware of exactly how.
    Sincerely,
       Christine K, #24
       Mt. Carmel House, 471 G Place NW, Washington, DC 20001

1. Length of stay in the program (since 11/2018, five years)

2. I am satisfied with my case management services.

Disagree, and I would not like to receive case management services (opt-out). The new caseworker is not a licensed social worker and her undergraduate work is in sociology, which is not really the same as social work. Her background and comportment is that of in Daycare work, so while she brings a lot of energy to the house, it is displaced because we are older women, mothers, grandmothers, adults, not in pre-school or K-6. She is even trying to convert parts of the dining room for "activity center" space. The bulletin boards which had a community postings type of orientation is being converted into teacher-style bulletin boards. This kind of authoritarianism seems manipulative. In the community meeting, she had already pre-volunteered one resident (Kim) for leading most of the activities, which seems divisive. (I had a handout which I misplaced but it showed her leading for almost all the activities: jewelry-making, scrapbook, movie night, game night, auction, field trip, birthday party, dinner-night, arts and crafts, etc.) In other ways P. seems used to coercing or forcing herself or her presence in ways that indicate that she cannot or will not address matters with flexibility or with consideration because pre-K children are rarely able to raise objections. Because she already seems willing to overstep boundaries, and is opinionated, I feel uncomfortable with counseling, which generally requires an emphasis on establishing trust, first and foremost. Not a pedagogical agenda that is imported and forcibly introduced without consideration while taking away from community dining room space or resources. Her attitude about this has been "Well, that is how it is going to be from now on, because I say so!" (As a past educator, I buy my own supplies if I want to create activities, not take away meaningful items such as magazine trays. In fact, nothing I have done around here, especially for the herb garden and gardening and planning, is reimbursed! I wouldn't even be surprised if the staff asked for reimbursement based on my efforts in the garden or from buying a new ironing board cover, for themselves.) For instance, we also have clients here with recidivism tendencies, and they appear to have slipped back into, yet these are still favored or treated as special clients even, which can create or foster serious breaches in confidentiality and endanger the safety, security, and well-being of the clients in this house.

3. I understand what is expected of me in this program.

Neutral. This is because while we all study the Program Guidelines, a lot of mixed-messages happen in the execution and delivery of services. For instance, right now the stairwell bulletin board is being "re-decorated" and like other two, it appears to require such a conscious effort, taking many hours to re-do compared to the relative number of hours in an educational facility that a real teacher devotes---often after school, done on her own time, and therefore done with economy and even haste. These new "Teacher-Style" bulletin boards are redone in a style that appears to nullify a "community" feeling; placards are being posted all in plastic sheets, and the wording large and simplified. Other items that used to be on the board are no longer there for our benefit. (Ms. Stephanie's door has all kinds of information tacked on there by now, just like the old bulletin boards).

This kind of "new programming" is obviously done after some conscious-planning that may be produced by the staff "echo-chamber effect" since all (4)-(5) staff appear to be from the same sociodemographic in gender, race, pay, cultural values, contemporary outlook, etc.  It would seem that while we have immutable values (Golden Rule), there are also corporate values (House Mission), then there are cultural values, and contemporary (in-group) values, and what these ladies do for recreation does have a tendency to transmute the performance into a parallell of promotion of false-programming. For instance, if by a secret Satanist, the efforts may be intentionally coded with occult symbols and/or messages, for instance images or memes, that promote or support "evil" behaviors.

4. I understand that is expected of me according to my lease or rental agreement.
Agree. They are prompt and swift in providing receipts.

5. I know how to file a complaint about the program if I have one.
Neutral. However as various residents note, there is double-edged sword almost in filing a request, grievance, or maintenance request. Maintenance requests are ignored or can remain unaddressed for long periods of time, even never addressed. If you keep filing the same complaint, it even gets "round filed" and I suspect Nakia does this with my past suggestion box ideas, as when I mention if the director received it, she nodded her head, no. With requests, if done in writing and marked urgent in the topic email, Ms. G. who is a Catholic Charities director, does try to address, and the other director also who addresses anti-bullying issues.

6. I understand the process for requesting reasonable accommodation within the program.
Disagree. We need to have better accommodation for the older women here who are on walkers---they should not have to file written requests if the staff are here all day long. They should be able to speak about their needs and secure some kind of response if it is reasonable within the same week. For instance, I have observed we have an elderly person here who is still on the second floor when they should be on the first floor, and she is not able to fix regular meals for herself anymore. I have requested or talked about having meal delivery here (such as DC Central Kitchen) as this is also a transitional shelter categorically.

7. I know how to request language translation and interpretation services within the program if or when needed.
Disagree. Right now, because of all the "bulletin board re-doing" the entrance hallway bulletin board is now a blank space with yellow poster paper backing and the title is "Having Positive Feelings" or something like that, with descriptors of positive feelings. Completely meaningless because all the useful community information is tacked on Ms. Ford's door, which looks like a crowded bulletin board, and there it appears to remain. So any consideration for people who need translation services...appears to be a disproportionate nonconcern.

8. I am provided with the resources and referrals that best fit my needs and help me achieve my goals.
Disagree. Any resources and referrals I have always done on my own or with outside help. This is in part because of my advanced and specialty qualifications, but also because of concerns of breaches in confidentiality. It is not encouraging to hear the staff trivialize or make denigrating remarks or even plot to paint the client as more disabled than they are. This is even worse if they secretly signal or send messages to clients on how to harass certain other clients, which we have only indirect evidence for. For instance, promoting Kim as the peer-leader here, giving her "Secretary" status for leading social-activities, is not only divisive, but also purporting to hold her up as a role model, when in fact, she may not really be if we are looking at immutable values, but maybe if we are primarily looking at it from a promotion of trendist "red light" street-culture values. We have many other hard-working women here and they are often not even around during most of the days, but they are completely ignored as role models.

Both community computers unfixed and unplugged, printer also

Another issue is that the Director and caseworker are more excited about planning social activities than getting the two broken computers and printer fixed at the "computer center" in the basement? We haven't had any working community computers for almost 2 years! I thought one of the goals in this house was encouraging us to look for work, enroll in training programs, learn new skills, etc, not do all these "social" activities. According to the program, our time is supposed to be spent in volunteering, mentoring, polishing resume writing and job search skills, interviewing skills, entrepreneurial or business skills, and develop depth and understanding in areas of health, spirituality, personal growth, etc. 

"Game","Movie","Scrapbook" nights, no distracting messages

The caseworker is pointing us to the MLK library for business and skills development. That is just very obvious and shows a very low bar of investment for us; and it also matches the afore mentioned prioritizing of favoring the "red-light" clique inside this house and elevating them to a "teacher status" around here, which is pretty darned weird since neither of them have ever taught in public high schools (like I have). In fact, I am not even certain that two of the staff are not into that themselves, the "red light" stuff. But never mind and of course, you put me in danger if you share all of this information outright. It's not like you live next to someone who is calling their special minders at all hours, or is into Haitian-style voodoo. So it's really disgusting and corrupt how deep it goes and how superficial and shallow the staff truly are. Their only saving grace is that it's getting that way all across the country now practically, so maybe it's cool in their view, how low our country is sinking, worse than a third-world country morally and ethically, while lying about maintaining standards.

9. I am satisfied with the conditions and cleanliness of the site I am staying at and receiving services at.
Neutral. I do a lot of extra chores here, which nobody even recognizes anymore. Taking out the kitchen trash, dining room table clean up, kitchen sink clean up, refrigerator clean up (a bottom bracket was broken and red meat fluid had fouled up the bottom of the refrigerator, but no one noticed or cared to clean this up; then I had to create a prop to keep that shelf level), replacing ironing board cloth, even emptying the cigarette butt containers outside! I have informed the staff about people not doing their chores, but they appear to do nothing about it. I also inform them about the side-door not being latched shut, which they also ignore. I also clean the laundry room (which Ella stopped cleaning after an altercation with Sharon), and even cleaning the walls which were stained with hair dye. However on the balance, being outside allows me to also do some gardening. When I do my own regular chore, Bathroom #3, it appears that some gals delight in dirtying it back up immediately for my benefit, as if they like to have to see me keep cleaning up after them. So this kind of behavior is inconsiderate, and the staff never do any cleaning themselves. When the new refrigerators were delivered there were stacks of cardboard boxes outside, and I ended up tearing them apart so they could fit in the recyle bins. Again, this was not noticed or thanked. I guess there are administrative rules against the staff actually doing any cleaning or maintenance, so they can sit all day long.  

10. I am satisfied with the meals provided at the site I am staying and receiving services at.
Neutral. No meals are delivered here except what residents order for themselves. The only time food is furnished is as part of an event, meeting, or donation from the church, about once or twice a year. The snacks are provided for meetings, it appears, as part of a budget, since it is highly doubtful that P. who cannot even afford to pay for her teacher materials out of pocket, but borrows stuff from the house to use, will pay for anything but the cheapest low-quality junk food on her own. Also, on a slightly different angle, nobody seems cognizant that our country is in the midst of three wars (Ukraine-Russia, Middle East, Taiwan), and preparing for war-time, so if the country were to shut-down, would they even care that we had adequate food and water for survival?? No, because all they do is follow what the program books tell them to do, so it is too "outside-the-box" for them to conceive of such a thing on their own. If they really cared, they would help us prepare for our "bugout" bags and buy some survival-food buckets and emergency water bottles to store in the basement, and tell us where we can go in emergency. Instead, they will probably say, well just follow what DC government tells you to do, and go were FEMA tells you to go...

11. I feel safe at the site I am staying and receiving services at.
Disagree. We have several serious cases of recidivism happening here, even it it appears "below the radar." This one person, Robin, appears to be on drugs or abusing them, at least once a week, usually on the weekends, and then she goes into the bathroom and sits for up to an hour vomiting. Several others are doing this---Tonya, Kim (drinking), etc. And this is aside from other stuff happening that usually happens in the red-light Chinatown district, to fulfill the expectations of local residents and tourists, that Chinatown is indeed, exciting. At least they need to try to shut the door behind them when they go out so the door is locked, however sometimes, even the front door is not even properly shut. 

12. My case manager and other program staff treat me with respect.
Neutral. At least on the surface they appear to try to treat me with respect, for instance, Stephanie and Jeannette were reasonably nice when I had to leave town for a while after my father passed away late last year. However we do have a current issue right now with the new caseworker P. who appears to be unduly concerned with "adopting the right attitude" towards us as a class, not as individual persons. We are not this label, that label, or "clients" pronounced with a distasteful sneer. This comes from the direction of the director most likely, but it can't be known for sure, as it also appears to be part of the corporate and contemporary culture. For instance, the activity baskets for April had "notable events for the days of April" and "addressing anxiety disorder" in another basket. Well, we have lots of types of disability here, so why single that one out? Also the magazines are full of self-help information and encouragement, so is this why she wanted to sort of hide those magazines away by taking away the magazine trays? Then the "thought of the month" stuff is really---just so tasteless in my opinion. We have twenty women here, and at dinner time, it gets really crowded even pre-Covid with women trying to fetch food to eat, cook, prepare, etc. So all the side tables were used even, but she has absolutely no consideration for that. Maybe she should try to stay overnight here and think about what the extra common space means. (It's not just the table she uses but also the wall above, and even the window frame, so it's almost like she is trying to move part of her office into the Dining Room to "help mind us.")

13. I feel comfortable voicing my needs and concerns to my case manager and other program staff.
Disagree. I already mentioned there appears to be an "echo chamber" effect happening where the staff are very adamant about an "us" vs "them" boundaries and especially if we are non-African-American. There is one caseworker (?) who is here during the day that I have not even been introduced to, but every time I see her, and say hello, she stares at me for 15 seconds before she says hello back, as if I were a "freak of nature." So this kind of attitude is very stigmatizing, not to mention if you catch the staff at a wrong moment. Most of the residents are rarely going downstairs during the day because in the past, they might be confronted with questions and concerns spoken in an antagonizing or challenging tone by the staff. So intimidation is also a part of their gaming and baiting the residents whenever or if they believe they can get away with it. For instance, just because I had "anxiety disorder nos"; they purposely adopt the most intimidating mannerisms, or even set up my meeting times, so that other residents are in the vicinity serving as distractants or "minding me" indirectly. This is how they use our information against us, because rather than being truly accommodating, they are infact, exploiting that as a weakness to make the client feel uncomfortable or to bait the client intentionally (for a possible write-up, which they try to use to conduct "interrogation-style" meetings).

14. My case manager is easy to reach and responds to my needs in a timely manner.
Disagree. In the past, the staff were easy to reach during off-hours; you could text them, call them. However after Ms. Hinnant came on board as director that changed, and now they are only available 9-5 weekdays. If you need anything on the weekends you must wait for Nakia to come in. Sometimes they do respond to texts, but mostly they do not, and they can even use your text message to respond by flaming you about another matter. I do not expect to be able to reach P. easily, and she is already being encouraged to be minimally responsive to our needs, and since she is underqualified or has not a strong social-worker counseling background (neither does Ms. Hinnant), she is not able to stand on her own feet in a professional manner, such as Mr. Brown pretty much tried to.

15. Meetings with my case manager are informative and productive.
Disagree. We are able to talk about what is needed for filling out the form, which does not take long. They try to pump you for information which they then use to conduct surveillance and monitoring, and that may be illegal if it concerns my relatives and friends or my social safety net. Also they share information back with clients on the sly, which is also illegal and outright dangerous for our safety and well-being. These do not feel like natural communication meetings, more like orchestrated "interrogation sessions." I have no criminal record and am a respectable citizen, albeit lower-income, for instance, I have a masters degree and professional engineering license as well as bachelors and associate degree certificates. I have working experiences which required FBI clearances, and I was always able to pass those with no problem. However they treat everyone here as if we all came from D.C. Jail system! So this is really quite odious that they have such low-expectations for us, that they practice "disempowerment" that is contrary to the program goals for fostering self-esteem and autonomy. Because P. comes from a pre-K daycare background, she is being trained to "infantalize" this program for working women even more, and create an authoritarian atmosphere, while faking a community environment that is filled with recreational activities worthy of AARP if we had the time and money for that. The point is, that they are oblivious of this country being in war, being in war-time, and that if the country were to shut-down, would they even care that we had adequate food and water for survival? No, because all they do is follow what the program books tell them to do, so it is too "outside-the-box" for them to develop such initiatives. If they really cared, they would help us prepare for our "bugout" bags and buy some survival-food buckets and emergency water bottles to store in the basement. They don't even hardly bother to connect us with senior community centers or area-wide community programs, much less order meaningful things which would improve our connection to the world, such as a Time magazine news subscription.

16. My case manager assists me if I have maintenance concerns in my unit.
Agree. However slow it is, it is eventually addressed. Sometimes it takes up to six months, but if it is with regard to bathroom or kitchen, usually in a week or so.

ADDENDUM: 

Here are some additional photos of the Political-Social-Cultural Agenda that is happening, that has political distractions to support: War, Monopoly, Fraud, Global Dominion, and authoritarianism. We just might get our wish! Last night some B52s were loaded with 12 nuclear bombs heading to Europe per HalTurnerRadioShow.com. (Enclosed new photos of yellow board, with a sticker added every day, the wonderful Games night, Movie night flyer. Plus the two dead computers and printer.) Also, I wonder why the ladies can't think of making an AIDS quilt for the Sofa because the seat is falling apart? We can have a sewing circle and donate goods to the church to prove that we are capable women? 

This very educational movie for low-income women to appreciate!

 

Too Many Homeless and Migrants Makes for Strange Bedfellows

 

 

Homeless Services Limited Shrinking Accountability

 

Tilex and Spray Bathroom Cleaner Handy Weapon

Thank to the Biden Administration with its gates wide open for all-migrants rushing into the United States, "Houston, we have a great problem!" 

Not only is New York facing a deficit and possible bankruptcy accommodating the migrants, but so are other sanctuary cities. All citizens living in the city nowadays must keep an eye for the migrants who have no place to go during the day. They might be seen standing at a street corner or near a street lamp, sort of dazed, staring at passerbys. Others look as if they are in the process of assimilating, but not if every two steps they need to check their Google Map with special instructions in Spanish.

They are squeezing out the homeless shelter populations in New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Denver, and elsewhere because there are special monies for housing the migrants, providing them welfare assistance, and even dedicated funds from the United Nations International Organization for Migration. 

According to the Center for Immigration Studies:

"Above all else, the UN investments in migration support activities this year now matter because they may well have just become the central linchpin in a new, unconventional White House border management plan to essentially “legalize” hundreds of thousands of immigrants annually before they can attempt illegal crossings so that they can instead be escorted into the country through official ports of entry, with pre-approval, as CIS reported here in November."

Granted that a few hundred dollars per migrant is not a lot, considering the rising costs of living inside the USA; nevertheless, put together the packages, including housing incentives probably also by the federal government and special programs, such as Welcome Corps, team up to provide new refugees a pathway to citizenship. 

What this means still is that local facilities, such as schools, playgrounds, parks, nursing homes, auxiliary buildings on campuses, and other facilities may still end up being used to house the overflow of migrants. This is already happening in New York, and including kicking seniors out of the nursing home for making room for migrants. A recent story by MSN reports that one nursing home on Staten Island has kicked out Korean War and World War II vets to make way for housing illegal migrants.

To understand the federal funding system one must also contextualize with regard to the cartels involved in offering tit-for-tat deals. There are articles about migrants wearing special wrist bands identifying their sponsor or cartel smuggler group; typically their contract might include serving as a drug-mule, as a future sweathouse laborer, as a promised for sexworker, as illegal grow farm labor. 

If one serves inside the working class whether in schools, hospitals, construction, or other pipeline industries, there is something akin to a "don't ask, don't tell" sort of authoritarianism that can slowly allowing the cartels to take over certain industries, then certain governments, then states, just like in various states in Mexico, in Central America, and in Columbia. 

Meanwhile, Washington community residents living in permanent supportive housing or surviving on HUD vouchers are being systematically disabused of their rights and privileges. This is seen in a variety of subtle changes in the homeless community advocacy processes. For instance, Washington Legal Clinic used to travel to various homeless supportive services communities, such as Miriam's Kitchen, StreetSense, N Street Village, etc, but ever since Covid-19 lockdowns, they have stopped. 

There is every reason to believe that in a government shutdown or under austerity measures, the McKinney-Vento Act may be at-risk. Here is what the US ICH has as a warning as of October 4, 2023 on the main webpage:

"In the potential absence of federal appropriations, neither USICH nor USICH.gov would be operational. Read more about our shutdown guidelines."

Too many social workers and federal employees at the trough to ensure that the homelessness dollars are sponged off and to belittle homeless and low-income residents so that there is no Robin Hood or Mitch Snyder hero/heroine rising up to help found independent homeless community shelters. 

Today any symptom of that kind of independent-mindedness is often targeted by staffspersons inside national charitable programs. NGOs, such as Catholic Charities, hire many staff who come from underprivileged backgrounds, and who often receive a lot of training on the job to compensate for the lack of a college degree. They become, pretty much, checklist sort of employees, who only see things in black vs white thinking. 

That in turn tends to create a sort of menagerie environment in which even organized crime can make its way into the setting. At the very least, it tends to exacerbate friction because the staff don't view the residents as individuals on their own, rather as a class that can be stigmatized based on income. If you were a good Catholic before living at Catholic Charities, it can make your faith very trying. But of course, just think of the obstacles that all nuns and seminarians face today.

Anyway no wonder there are men who just don't want to live in any kind of shelter system, which unfortunately, can place them at extreme risk from the elements, let alone reduce their chances of finding a Housing First placement. There is one such fellow now who still lives at McPherson Square, even though all the homeless were evacuated from the park eight months ago. 

This fellow has clung onto his sidewalk home tenaciously. It doesn't even look like a home---more like a vendor's street cart---which explains how he has managed to pass for such. However his face and his general condition says it all. I thought he was quite obstinate, but now, I realize that maybe he has something credible to be worried about in DC's men's shelters, with their returnees and toughs who often target nonblacks or anyone "different."

This dude likes to talk politics, but truth is that he is now worried about being chased out of the park. So his blog now has that as a featured talking point on the mainpage of CleanHonestGov.com. The Park Police want to contain Daniel Kingery's independence, keep him inside a shoebox for a room, or a prison-bunker for a bed. They always hate bloggers and independent journalists the most; even the best of the alt-journalists are often the worst hypocrites.

Anyway either that or there is the rush of authoritarian empowerment after the January 6th show trials, with some of these insurrectionists now sentenced to serving decades, yes decades, in jail for serious crimes that never happened. No one was hurt, no one was kidnapped, no one was really even threatened, but the lesson being that former President Trump and his ilk must be taught a lesson.

I am not sure what party Daniel might belong to, but often, the Republican Party gives lower-middle class white people something to hope for. Maybe they think that Happy Days might return again, although for sure the days of Archie Bunker are long gone. A shred of hope is something that all homeless and low-income disabled older people desire, yet certain types of social workers don't even want to offer them the tiniest scrap.

There is the rub where Permanent Supportive Housing and Transitional Housing goes. Even if the rules and the civil rights code state no discrimination based on income or house-address, it happens an awful lot inside Washington, D.C. It happens outside of D.C. too. As soon as some healthcare worker figures out that I am only low-income, and it might even be my relative working as a doctor, they no longer address me in a polite, civil manner.

And here at Catholic Charities, there is also ageism to consider. Yes, the Pope and a whole lot of cardinals can live a very respectable life with people bowing and stooping to kiss their hands. But for nuns, they are lucky if they can get their medical bills paid. For some low-income pensioner caught inside the Catholic Charities system, and it doesn't matter what your educational level is, just like being placed in a nursing home, you are just as useful as a wooden pallet.

Why do I say that? Because you can assert yourself blue in the face, and the staff assume the most lackadaisical atttitude, lie to your face practically, and blow you off while snorting with laughter and derision behind your back. If you are being bullied, the official policy is that there is zero tolerance.

The real policy is that bullying is used to weaponize the staff's authority as an extension of their power. We have a gal here who has terrorized the second floor of the group home for women for the past two years, and she is getting worse, not better. All of us have complained about her---that is at least ten women on this floor, and at least four women on the other floors, but the staff let her stay here.

I asked the director about this after I was recently forced to file an anti-stalking order (it should have been a civil protection order but at least it is something). The director assured me, "I've tried to get her out, but it's a decision that is being made higher up." She has used that line before, the very same line, with another very troublesome resident (who is still here).

You know why I don't believe it, even if I kept mum while she asserted that repeatedly? Because it is the staff here who decide who is admitted here. They decide among themselves directly, yet they cannot evict someone because "someone higher up is making a decision"? That's just an excuse!

This predatorial housing inmate is a monster. She wears a black trenchcoat 24/7 with the hood up, dark sunglasses, black leotards, and black boots. She dresses like that 24/7 even inside the house. She verbally and physically harasses other women on this floor. (I suspected she is transgender and still have my doubts). Being at least 6 feet in height, she uses her height to her advantage including obstructing the doorway into the bathroom or pushing a cabinet against the door to keep it shut. (For some reason no locks on any bathroom doors here).

She also chases after residents outside the house, yelling racial epithets at them, screaming and cursing at them, even if they never talk to her. I wanted to show her some niceness, but she doesn't really see anyone here as a human being. She starts launching her verbal and then physical attack as soon as she sees the person (object) period. She is clever enough to fake it with the staff, of course.

In her room, she screams for hours, literally hours, at a time, using foul vulgar language about this resident, that resident, this staffperson, that person, etc, even though everything she says is based on her imaginings of that person having done or wishing to do something to her.

I have recommended over and over again that she needs counseling, she needs anger-management training, she can be counseled outside the house, and her medications should be regulated. But again, all of this is seemingly ignored.

Recently she SPAT on an older white female resident who lives here. Again this older resident, who I've known for at least four years, would not harm a fly. Yet she accosted this older woman and began haranguing her about being a disgusting white person, and then spat on her. She also has attacked me (an Asian-American) verbally, and recently used a bathroom cleaner spray to spray on my face.

You know what one staffsperson did when she heard this? Sort of laugh or smirk. She thought it was funny! Then when I told her it was not funny, that she is a menace for the house, she said exactly the same thing: "Well it is a decision being made from higher up." And again, she laughed or smirked!

Higher up? Try lower down---it must be Satan who is advising them to keep bullies around and allow them to act so sadistically. If she had done that to the STAFF, then of course, a whole different story, right? She would instantly be gone.

But we are just residents, so we don't have the same kind of human rights anymore. And that attitude has been adopted by other agencies or institutions socially influenced by the power, might, and dollars of Catholic Charities. Even the court might be persuaded based on labels to view me as a "lesser person" or as "living in a group home of disabled women" or "lower income" or just stereotyping the very same way that I often hear the staff do, and the Catholic Church parishioners do, that "this is a house of mad women."

Great. So they have to keep the self-confirming prophecy by allowing and encouraging this monster-demonically possessed woman to stay here. She is demonically possessed if she can rave evil things about people and think such bad thoughts and give vent to that screaming in rage for hours at time. She is a bad person for her vile intimidation of other residents on this floor, calling them names, spooking them so bad that they dare not use this restroom on this side of the floor even though she maniacally pretends to do my cleaning chore for me, acting as if I can never do as good a job as her.

I have very sad doubts that the Anti-Stalking order will have much effect. It won't encourage Elle to apologize. The staff never make her apologize about how inconsiderate and abusive she is. The staff don't seem to mind that they support such mixed messages about the mission of this home which is for women who are disabled and recovering from abuse. They don't care if they are derelict in their duty and responsibility to protect or provide a safe place. They certainly are not operating in good faith.

And the court, which is too close to this shelter, and we all know how powerful the church lobbyists are in this community, will even probably try to trivialize my complaint even if I present evidence and have witnesses.

This, too, is the state of America today, where because of so many poor people, the present poor Americans can be conveniently shoved aside to make room for those "paid for by the cartels." That is why the staff sort of leers, and sneers, and scoffs. But it can be for other reasons as well. People who are in the human trafficking business are trained to adopt a cruel and callous attitude.

Think about the slave trade in Africa that took place for hundreds of years or more before the white man ever arrived there. You have to have that kind of mindset of keeping another human being in a cage as a commodity, even a unit of trade, and the keepers are often sexually-trafficked type human beings themselves. They are completely desensitized and the more they are desensitized and callous, the better their chances for moving up.

So yes, the women here are no better than cargo being held in a vessel on their way to Kingdom Come. In fact, as I mentioned before, we even have relatives who maltreat my other relatives sort of like this. They view older relatives as past their prime and therefore the only time they communicate is when they want a favor. They stomp on poor relations and force them to work like indentured servants. Yet come Christmas or the holidays, they are the first to appear in all their finery and fake generosity.

This is exactly why so many people are no longer even planning to vote. I was figuring out whether if my older friend, if he were living today, who he would vote for. Recently I am convinced he would stay at home. Even my parent told me she did not even vote the last election. I am having a very hard time believing that any change can come from any politician be they red, blue, green, or independent. We are going to harvest the bad fruit from the rotten seed that we are allowing to flourish.

Even while attending the professional webinars that I am allowed to sign up for because of my advanced credentials, the staff here, and the doctor there, are totally oblivious. All they would rather see is a walking dead person, a zombie, so they can rush me to the Death Ward when no one is watching.

No wonder Catholicism is a dying religion.

Housing Project Ever-Repair A/C Service

Base of Air Conditioner lacks Evaporative Water Collection Pan

                     

        Every year for the past five years during the summer the same thing happens at this community group home: the air conditioner (A/C) begins to leak water and there is water damage in various parts of the house, but especially downstairs in the dining room, sometimes for weeks at a time. 

        The staff coordinator calls the A/C service van and usually the repair person goes up to the floor above where the A/C closet is, and he does the same thing. He takes the dry-vaccuum and hoses the water out from the base of the air conditioner. As seen above the air conditioner does have evaporative coils and it causes moisture to collect, quite a bit of it evidently, and it is supposed to feed from the white PVC drain pipe to a vertical collection pipe into a system that drains out of the house.

        But as this resident has learned (from being curious over the years about the ever-leaking A/C and appreciating the inconvenience), the A/C should have a secondary collection system of some type as most do, with another evaporative collection pan at the base and including an overflow drain to the vertical drainage collection system. 

        Well it doesn't. As pictured above, when the bottom grate is removed it is just a padded insulated box that feeds directly into the rest of the duct system. But because of the inefficiency of the collection system directly below the evaporative coils in the A/C, there is so much water that the box bottom becomes saturated (although the insulation does have minimal waterproofing) and the overflow carries out into the duct systems towards various rooms. 

   Replaced the air filter, but the box bottom does not drain

            To add insult to injury the repair person retorted to this resident that she was not qualified to comment or make suggestions, since she was not a certified technician, as he stood there and did the usual thing: use the dry-vacuum to hose it out, sometimes for an hour at least. Little did he know that the resident had done the same thing the night before at least twice because of the rapidly filling pool. Neither he nor the staff recognized this resident's efforts of course. (They would rather consult their organizational attorney to find out how to keep the residents underinformed, keep them at bay, minimize their concerns, send them warning letters, or even try to evict them). 

        He asked and berated, "Do you have an Air-conditioner Certification? No! You don't! And anybody can post a video on YouTube! It's hardly credible! You don't know anything! That standing water is there for recirculation! Everything is supposed to go back to recirculation!"

        "So if everything is supposed to go back for recirculation, why are the ducts leaking and the ceiling of the dining room leaking?" the resident asked.

        The A/C ever-repair person fumed at me and looked like he was going to explode! Of course, such an obese heavy-set man might even have a heart-attack from such hard cross-questioning! 

        "You don't know anything! That water is meant to recirculate!"

        Okay, I think, sure we have atmospheric climate air recirculation. It's just all perfectly normal!

Usually this is just the start of the leak in the dining room

          So while this A/C guy is gaslighting me, assuring that I know absolutely nothing about his business, which is every year to come to suck dry the saturated base of the A/C a few times a month, and then the organization can send out its maintenance crew to patch up and repaint the ceiling, the staff are giving me the cold shoulder. It is because I wrote them an email sharing my concern that the box needs a metal collection pan and a drainage pipe to the vertical PVC collection pipe. It's a relatively simple fix, I assured them. So the next business morning (the leak began on the weekend), staff were in meeting all morning, and too busy to travel upstairs, and deliberately tried to brush off this resident repeatedly. They think it will legally embroil them if they visit the A/C closet with a resident!

        In fact any kind of collection system would do, even a PVC lined box with a horizontal drain pipe would do. Those evaporation coil pans at the base of almost every air conditioner and boiler have a function, which is to catch and drain emergency overflow, even if the thermostat malfunctions. 

This is the main weepage pipe from the evaporative coil inside the A/C

        Honestly, I don't expect that the staff in the house have anything civil to respond to me, but if anything, will do what they usually do, which is expect us to not talk, while they figuratively sweep the problem under the rug. Seriously, there was a kitchen graywater leak under the sink (kitchen drain) for over a year, and it had grown worse over that time period, when finally this resident took everything out from underneath the sink cabinet, placed water collection bins, and alerted the staff. It took a couple more months till it was finally fixed. In the meantime, this resident drained the bucket every day, up to several times a day. Some other residents helped, but prior to this, the area under the sink, the plywood undercabinet was left wet, moist, and rotting. (This resident would have addressed the matter sooner, but there were some very aggressive and abusive residents who would chase her out of the kitchen). (You would never believe that the staff also use this very same kitchen daily to fix their lunch!)

        This is why to staff's chagrin, the resident always addresses the email to the permanent supportive housing director as well. Since that director is on vacation, the staff don't need to direct their sincere civil attention to the problem until she returns, and hopefully decides that ever-repair is not the same as a full-solution. And of course maybe the staff are worried that it is this resident wanting to play drama-queen, or making it about personality-contest. Rest assured. There are other residents with renumerative starring roles here, calling 9-1-1 about imaginary invasions of the house. 

        No, this is about having a permanent source of mold spreading from the base of the A/C duct box to the rest of the duct system. Think Legionnaire's disease, for starters. Even the filter starts molding prematurely and that mold does spread easily through the duct system into every single room.

Musty moldy filter and dirty water collect directly underneath the A/C unit

          Again, this resident is reminded of the jeers of the A/C person or innuendos, "You are not paid to do anything here, I am! You have no authority here! We can't do anything without additional money!"

           Exactly! Jesus was not paid to do his type of ministry either, nor his apostles. We are not charging God for the air we breathe, the water we drink, even if the capitalists of the world are hoping to eventually make that chargeable monetarily as well. There is no renumeration for my volunteer work here or in the garden or anywhere this resident may be in sharing of free useful good information. 

        In the meantime, the resident wants to thank the new innovative systems in development around the world. While the urban AI version can feel invasive, the system of social-credit and points earned for volunteer work used by the People's Republic of China should be an option for poor people here in the United States. Think about coupons and how they are used for discounted groceries or dining out. Wouldn't that be nice to rack up some free points to use for travel or car rental?

            And insofar as being able to hold accountable, investigate, communicate, disclose, express, Google has also been extremely helpful. All these A/C experts sharing their expertise are not sharing in order to cheat home-owners or discourage them from taking care of their unit or disempowering them from developing DIY fixes for a leaky unit. In fact, on the contrary, they usually have so much business in the summer that they are hoping that customers can learn to pinpoint the problem better. Some of them are even sharing theory and not just practice, such as GrayFurnaceMan, HVAC School, and Skill Builder. Because of the CEUs this resident has to undertake for civil engineering recertification, she is always alert to these sorts of websites. And this is even before we dig into GoogleScholar or GoogleBooks and check out the free chapters on pro-environmental climate-protective presidential hopefuls. These are the types of publishers who have a noble-cast of character in this world, and who are not here on earth to merely manipulate people and things for their own materialist gain. 

        In the past, a long time ago, this resident had a best friend who took her on a journey to Portugual where we visited a great number of ancient churches. Once at dusk we came upon a service in process and my friend happened to glance up at the ceiling and noticed a crack in the vaulted ceiling. It was a spreading type of crack, but he wouldn't wait. Instead, he whisked us out of the church in a hurry. At the time, I sort of chuckled about the rush, but actually today, it is a sobering reminder of when one is in an endangered sect within the church. There is a church nearby and it would seem as if all Catholic churches are the same, however, this one is always under semi-renovation. It used to not be so, then it became so after the ascencion of a new vicar. The painting is never finished, the stations of the cross are alway partly covered, the statues are always being moved about, the talk is always of what else needs to be paid for, and once one thing is done, something else must be fixed. Most people do not attend church to be forced to notice such matters, but indeed it is the case here. That was this resident's impression, a church with a cracked ceiling, so to speak. And so there, the parishioners will be more worried about their pocketbook, a sermon about the distant past, a funneling to not ask pertinent questions about relevant matters, but to be willing to absorb as gospel truth the weight of the pastor's viewpoints. No wonder pride and arrogance is such a problem today, when people so hypocritically are encouraged to base their authority solely on materialism, title, and figurative glory. 

        Anyway, it does no good to raise the issue about the Ever-Repair A/C drainage problem, as the staff always presume that what they will do is invariably correct and does not need resident input. If we do provide input, there is likely to be no feedback, and if anything, even a backlash. And if they do not undertake that, they will even use residents to backlash at another resident. When the ceiling leaks and the A/C is not working, they do not even necessarily respond to anything at all that you say, depending on "how preoccupied they are" and especially if you are just Asian-American. So there is a very high bar being established and encouraged over anything this resident says or suggests, irregardless.

        But again, we have new role models, and while they look like happy stars in public, such as Kim Iversen, or Choeshow, or Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., we know that they still take guff from the worshippers of Baal and Moloch. Always notice how the security tries to hang in the vicinity so that the camera catches their leering gaze, the sneer on their face, the mockery in their treatment of political candidates. They even do that to politicians that anyone might vote for who are "in the mainstream." That is the contemporary attitude which we must deal with, and do so with grace, if at all possible----the soldiers of Empire at the base of the crucifix ready to take down your robe and divvy it up.

"This A/C unit has a special name called 'Bait Me'." The staff will not accompany the resident to look in the A/C closet but will sit in the office and wait for the A/C Ever-Repair to show up...

"Just sit back and wait and let them fix it," resident says...And this is the typical saga of much of public housing and why they eventually go under is how their staff people are paid to "just follow the rules." This is why some people believe that DHA is in cahoots with HUD to help run down the housing so more properties 'go to market.' Short-term gain is exactly all that some bureaucrats care about!

How Catholic Charities keeps people down

The way my friend tells it, they are a vicious bunch

    I am doing a friend a favor and posting her new blog, MCHVictoryGarden.blogspot.com. 

The way she describes it, she began gardening about a year ago as a way to deal with a couple deaths at her permanent supportive housing which is run by Catholic Charities. The permission was given by a new senior program manager at her house, but that manager has since cooled down on the project. The reason is inexplicable. By all appearances the resident is a model resident---doing chores, paying rent on time, attending meetings, getting along with other residents. However she is not African-American, and that is seen as a big negative by the social dominancy of that minority. Even as a minority, it cannot matter unless it is the right kind of minority.

    Complaints against the staff go unheard or are addressed in the most superficial manner possible. Even the priests, located nearby at the church, frown at any residents because they are all stereotyped in the most negative possible light: poor shiftless disabled minority women who are just a burden on society. They cannot see that Jesus was poor or his disciples were wandering preachers. They forget the history of the Sisters of Poverty. In the age of Trump, anyone who is not monied or propertied is just a pariah. They should tear down all the artwork in Rome, half of which were merely the products of poor Italian artists and sculpturers who survived on the beneficence of nobles willing to house and feed them.

    The staff are no longer even willing to listen to my friend's comments or take questions. As soon as the program manager was assured that her job was secure, thanks to the departure of the social worker, her attitude towards clients changed overnight. Suddenly a sort of long dormant angry race-fixated personna emerged---even her hair style changed, reminding one of the early days of Angela Davis. When she first was hired, her demure was such that she had her hair straightened and tied in a pony tail, and wore nurse-assistant uniforms. Now she wears the standard DC office bureaucrat attire. In fact, according to my friend, she worked in DC government for almost two decades, enough to retire on comfortably, and yet, here she is at Catholic Charities, such a wonderful second job. 

    There is a suspicion that some second careerists might be plumbing the lists of older housing for DC Housing Authority to speculate on, or that her relative who works at the Community Partnership and is a realtor, needs more listings. Who knows? Any questions about her background or interests also go unanswered: it's none of the residents' business. Since they are just on charity, they should count themselves lucky to not actually be slaves. 

    Reading back in history, in fact, slavery in all its worst forms was long practiced in Africa, and often any captives, poor people, people in debt, women sold or traded, were kept in cages and merchants even counted merchandise using slave-units. Captives could be used for slave labor, for servants if they were lucky, or fattened and kept till ripe for cannibalism rituals. As these practices continue today even in the Congo, it should not be surprising that these kinds of attitudes on second or third-class people have persisted, and that the main perspective of the staff is that the residents in their rooms are viewed as prisoners, and they as the guards.

    As a prison-warden, the staff is doing well. My friend has done most of the work on the herb and vegetable garden herself, but the staff are taking full credit for their career portfolios. The staff did clean out a portion of the storage shed which can be used for tool storage, and they did sort of clean up the patio. But my friend does this every other day---tidy up the patio. As for the labor, the actual physical labor of watering, weeding, taking care of, planting, transplanting, feeding the birds, and so on, my friend does this all by herself, every day. 

   To alleviate some pain and misery with regard to the cruelty of the new program manager who has become extremely icy, based on trying to frame the resident as a race-ist, but not succeeding yet, and therefore persistently using many different styles of baiting, including sending the program coordinator (fancy name for bookkeeper) up the stairs every day to knock on doors to check if all the residents are "still alive"...The reality is that the PC only really knocks on my friend's door mostly every single day at least once. So if the resident didn't answer, the PC actually puts her key in the door and tries to go inside the room! Fortunately my friend invented a "doorsock" to secure her doorknob, and the PC doesn't like to be seen struggling with a doorknob sock in the middle of the hallway---yet. This PC (and the other social worker) have been accused time and again of breaking into residents rooms in order to snoop around. And yet Catholic Charities just keeps them around. The social worker may have left on her own accord, but several residents accused her of breaking into a resident's room after that resident was found dead in her room. Even my friend is worried about what this PC means to do in her room. Is she interested in proving herself as a empowered administrator? Is she trying to find out about bank accounts? Is document forgery in the picture? Are there more sinister intentions, such as food poisoning?

    The strangest part about Catholic Charities is that many of their staff are just incredibly thick when it comes to career entitlement. They may not have even graduated from college, but once they put on the badge, Catholic Charities offers them many free training programs, and so they acrue many training certificates, which of course make them feel empowered. Plus there is a certain culture of entitlement as well. In an era where many are working from home, factories are downsizing, many accounting offices have gone part-time seasonal, these paraprofessionals are still walking about like it's the 1970s Archie Bunker union worker mindset, except that they are people of color, and feel extra entitled from all the slave reparations owed to them from nonblacks, whether or not those nonblacks' parents were here during the Civil War. It's a very thick mentality, but extremely prevalent on the East Coast. 

    So the staff are fully part-and-parcel to this worldview, and they encourage the black residents to wax their privilege against the nonblacks. Never mind that the residents sign an anti-bully form, never mind that there are ways to complain, never mind that some of those residents have problems stemming from drug abuse, criminal history, instability---and in fact may even still have those sorts of gang affiliations---the fact is that they are privileged because they are black, and the staff almost all the way up the food chain will basically almost do the opposite of all the rules they are supposed to support or promote for the clients protection. This is just the opinion of my friend, but I am here to protect her 1st amendment rights.

    Her opinion is that when the staff hold meetings, what they call talking about the clients becomes a source for basically gossiping and intriguing new ways to torment certain people. The new rule on knocking on every resident's door every day to see if "they are still alive" seemed to be a good safety check, but it is in reality only done to residents who the staff want to take extra steps to try and bully and intimidate. When my friend pointed out that the staff mainly only knocks on her door while ignoring most of the others, the PC tartly says "well, I already know they are here!" So somehow, even when the PC mostly works behind a closed office door, she can know those residents are present and alive, but not sure about my friend?

    Another example is how my friend started this garden and went so far as to write a small grant proposal. Well, the director did thank her for the work, but she did not actually thank her for writing it, rather, she thanked her for "reading" it. Great difference between reading vs writing a proposal. Same with the blog, I will bet. That is why my friend is sharing it with me. It's a simple enough looking Victory Garden blog, but apparently she feels anxious that the staff might just plagiarize the whole thing and claim they wrote or directed the writing. It shouldn't be a big deal whatever they say, but in an era of no-work and no-pay, my friend does not want to feel both slighted and cheated, both harassed and exploited, and to have words or facts put down that do not in fact match the reality. I guess that is her way of looking at it. 

    So here is another photo she has to share from said blog of another client---her foot. Yes, AM can definitely put her foot on it that she also contributed many valuable ideas, but yes, she is sort of being razzled a lot too, although it appears a lot more subtle in her case. 

 

We can overcome too!

D.C. Captured by Development Interests: Why Voting is a Waste of Time

Mayoral Candidate DC Councilman Robert White speaking at Tenant Advocacy Day

 (April 24, 2019)

 

Why No One Wants to Vote in DC: It really doesn't matter

During the primary, early elections are being held at various locations in District of Columbia, including in the extensively renovated Martin Luther King Public Library.

This voter showed up early and amid all the paperwork for changing party, it still went mostly smoothly. The reason for the snag is that I was told I could not vote in the primary outside my official party declaration. So as an Independent, I cannot vote for any Democrat or Republican candidate. Another snag is the voting bulletin itself. Strangely the voting bulletin provides no information on candidates or candidate statements. Instead the District of Columbia 2022 Voter Guide pages 10-47 contain "sample ballots that will be used in the June 21, 2022 Primary Elections organized by party and ward."

In other words, it is filled with fluff. To its credit, the Board of Elections did provide ballots in Spanish for residents who cannot read English. The back of the ballot is published also, which hardly means anything to most voters. It lists the candidates running for local party offices of their Democratic/Republican State Committee.

But without any information in the printed Voter Guide about the council candidates running, this voter wasted a lot of time thumbing through her smartphone finding out about them from their webpages! Of course a webpage is not much to go on for finding out about the candidate or how they voted. Better information could be found if one attended an ANC meeting regularly, or attended a DC Council meeting, or reviewed the council notes.

However everyone realizes that the DC Council is in the pocket of developers by now. Even favorite councilman Robert White admitted that the pay-to-play system has worked in DC's favor as the developers do contribute to gentrified area improvements: utility upgrades, pedestrian walkways, beautification projects, bike paths, open areas, and so on. In fact, the MLK Library renovation is a grand testimony of such improvement.

However it is like Street Sense Media reporter Reginald Black once described, that these community partnerships are a bane in terms of what locals envision as real improvement---housing for the unhoused and jobs for the chronically underemployed. That is to say, private-public partnerships have a parasitical existence heavily reliant upon huge take-offs of the grants doled out in their favor. For instance, an advocacy organization with four staff will require a yearly payload in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, then add in the costs for production, bidding, and execution, and no wonder gentrification projects are often time-consuming.  

Just read about the years of haggling that went into the decision-making for the City Center redevelopment project, NoMa (North of Massachusetts Avenue), and a host of other projects listed by JStreetCompanies.com or at DC.Curbed.com. According to Wikipedia "CityCenterDC," the project planning began in 1982 connected with the Washington Convention Center site redevelopment. Plans were batted around for decades before the city settled for luxury condominium, hotels, and retail space complex. It gives a glimpse of the backdrop which the public is scarcely aware of, aside from the fancy Tesla car showroom.

Each neighborhood of the Washington, DC metro region, as far away as at Branch Avenue, Suitland, Maryland, developers and planners have backburner plans on how to revitalize the corridor using gentrification models such as improving transportation hubs, taking advantage of area attractions (such as museums, plazas, library) and the "hot housing market" to up the ante. This would include acquisition and redevelopment based upon undervalued buildings, with Council representatives, such as the former Councilman Jack Evans involved with the West End redevelopment scheme (later exposed at City Paper and/or District Dig).

Again, the West End Library has become a mecca for area residents and the homeless population to while away the hours sitting quietly or surfing the internet; nevertheless, with each such development, the pay-to-play lobby ensures that officially very low-income remain excluded from the "affordable housing" units in these luxury apartment buildings. Everyone knows this, and no one better than the City Council, the ANC representatives, the DC Housing Authority spokespeople, and so on----because it's the local government's biggest business!

To their credit, despite the Covid-19 disaster, Mayor Bowser has given generously to the needy in the form of emergency housing, even paying for three area hotels worth of housing for the aging and homeless during the crisis. With these come free meals, cleaning services, and readier access to social workers, medical clinic outreach and placement services. It has helped thousands of people off the homeless lists over the past eight years. The outreach workers are often sincere because many are volunteering for the detail, going out in the field, performing additional work outside their normal hours. In this way, in general, the entire Council is on board with at least trying to appear to support public welfare.

Yet the notion that some are in it to help themselves is why it should matter----holding officials responsible. A glance at District Dig will reveal that there are plenty of scandals to address---even if maybe they are only the tip of the iceberg! More importantly, is the normalization of the public perception that public welfare recipients are chattel, and that the Mayor can rule with an iron-fist, or adopt authoritarian poses in her last years in office. (It is uncertain whether she will demand a fourth term). Already, the message of the Democrats towards the poor is increasingly a "take it or leave it" attitude, and this would even include those stuck living in a tent on the street----that they had better vote for the incumbents and not complain!

This sense of virtue-signaling and political entitlement is rife in many ways in DC. Since this weekend is Juneteenth, I realize I even have a small penance. Non-blacks or Asians become frustrated and angry with the "home-grown" attitude of many DC blacks---it's almost a given sometimes. Yet, looking at the hidden hand behind the City Council, who are these Councilpersons beholden to? The development interests who are the creme de la creme of "white" local natives---and not infrequently of Jewish persuasion, who wield an inordinate power in the press, even right down to Street Sense Media, which spokes now include partnerships with PatchDC, DCLine, District Dig, City Paper, and grand-daddy Washington Post.

Why? Why is a small community citizen watchdog paper unwilling to allow it's black vendors a leeway in writing their own articles, or in openly trying to censor them? Why do they consistently privilege a coterie of "competitively-granted interns" who have not even graduated from college? Only a handful of writers are exhibited, and the same cliquishness is evident in many remaining newspapers. They simply cannot admit how free-market democracy is failing the poor; they must contrive to uphold an idealistic architecture of pedigree over the poor, unwashed masses. This kind of bipolar patronizing philosophy is thriving now in almost every nonprofit organization serving the poor in DC.

The philosophy is that once you are on the receiving end, you no longer deserve to be the master of your own person. You have become possibly a useful tool, useful prop, but otherwise, easily thrown aside. There are often employees, who may even be paid foreign operatives, working to ensure that a rigid careerist mindset predominates in the company culture that dwarfs or eclipses the altruism of trying to put the needs of the clients first. The same operatives were or remain in place due to Covid, who encouraged hospital administrators to adopt emergency measures that benefited the hospital's profit motive, first and foremost, no matter how many patients die.

That is why, even if it seems like an empty gesture, and the pollworkers may be laughing at how long it took me to decide who to vote for, it is still important to try and vote. Of course, now I know I have a lot more to do besides voting. I cannot go back to street vendoring for Street Sense Media----the black and white dynamics were like a chasm---broad and painful. But I am thinking about that vendor in my dream trying to sell me a subscription, about Mitch Snyder, who gave his life to the CCNV---and may have been the victim of foul play.

About Reeves Center, and the miserable coming teardown it will have to endure, just like Walter Reed Hospital Center did, for the sake of more ticky-tack luxury playtowers. 

 

 

Photo by author, Coalition for Non-Profit Housing & Economic Development Event in Washington, D.C.