He Lasted A Week, Then Wanted Escape From Her Clutches

The young man who I reluctantly took to the abusive VOA Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter called me last week and asked for help.
I had left him my card when I let him off at the shelter, telling him that there would come a day, soon, when he could no longer bear the director and at least one of her staff.
The day came, and he called from the library last Saturday.
I met him there and drove him to the bus station for a ticket to Rapid City.
When I asked him what had happened at the shelter, he told me, “Things got weird up there pretty fast.” He didn’t seem to want to elaborate. I didn't press him for details, as much fun as it would have been to blab it all on my blog.
I am not one to believe that my helping a person gives me the right to pry information out of them, or tell them what they should do, or attach rules to my help.
This is one of the places where the director of the abusive shelter and I part company.
Among the inappropriate meddling that I have observed at the shelter include:

Obstructing residents from obtaining spot jobs.
Asking residents whether they are having sex downtown.
Demanding that residents not eat meals at local bar-and-grills.
Threatening to kick out residents who take jobs with employers of which the director does not approve.
Demanding that residents get costly mental health evaluations when they don’t think like she does – or get kicked out.
Demanding that one resident not spend time with another resident’s friend.
Insisting on knowing the resident’s living situation when he or she finds a means to leave the shelter.

This kind of behavior ought to offend every individual and business owner who has supported “the homeless” by giving time, money or items to Volunteers of America and/or the shelter. Any support directed to VOA helps prolong and tacitly supports this kind of behavior against people experiencing some of their most vulnerable moments.
Any support given to the VOA condones this outrageous and manipulative behavior.

'I Am Used To Being Treated Like Crap'

A while back a friend called me to say he had met a guy at a gas station who was looking for the local homeless shelter.
“He needs a ride up there,” he said.
My friend didn’t have a vehicle. I have given him a few lifts, and he opted to call me to help out this other guy.
I met the guy that wanted to go to the shelter, and talked to him for a while.
I told him I really had mixed feelings about taking him to the shelter because the director is a mean-spirited megalomaniac, and he was unlikely to be treated very well, or fairly, or nicely, or compassionately.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I am used to being treated like crap.”
That doesn’t say much for our culture.
Well, I told him if he expected to be treated like crap that he was headed to the right place. I drove him up to the shelter, explaining that they won’t let me on the property because I blog about their poor treatment of people, their disorganized organization, and the fraudulent ways they perpetuate grant money from the federal government.
Anyway, I gave him my card and dropped him off.
His words, “I am used to being treated like crap,” still hum in my head. The shelter in my town perpetuates the crappy treatment of people.
Anyone donating money or materials to Volunteers of America and its Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter is supporting thugs in their thuggery.

New Drug Test Office Beats VOA Hands Down On Ethics

I see where a former Volunteers of America program director of the local drug testing division is forming her own drug testing services.
She is actually going to certify her people according to Federal Department of Transportation regulations for the use of breath test equipment. This is something that Volunteers of America has not gotten around to doing. It was deemed too expensive.
I mentioned this to the DOT, and we have been emailing back and forth for some time. Apparently, the DOT is concerned that Volunteers of America is not holding up its end, which is just another day at the office at VOA Wyoming-Montana.
When I worked in the drug testing division at VOA, we were “certified” as technicians to use testing procedures with Redwood labs of California, and MedTox labs. Our certification required that we take a written test, and it with our administrator’s permission, we did so with the answer sheet in front of us. To do otherwise was deemed too much fuss.
Certification for breath tests was non-existent. Certification for specimen collection/preparation was bogus. Still, on we tested.
It sounds to me like this woman who is starting her own business might have ethics that are missing from the VOA work culture.