Starting On The Staff

Not only did we have to live with five other families at times in the shelter, but there was staff there 24 hours a day. There were also security cameras and security officers who stopped by the house once a night to make sure all we well. The staff rotated on 8-hour shifts with the case manager having the 8:00a.m. to 4:00p.m. shift Monday through Friday.

When I first got to the shelter the case manager was a man, he told me what my obligations to Social Services were and that if I needed help with anything – resources for anything the kids and I needed – that I could ask him. He was gone a week later, just seemed to disappear. I found out months later that he’d been fired for making advances to one of the female residents. I don’t know if it’s true or not, it’s just what I was told. If it is true it makes me think that PRD has more to worry about than us parents watching each other kids when the staff is more of a threat than we are.

Anyway, they replaced him with a very nice older woman who was always cheerful but not very helpful. She’d make phone calls for us when we had trouble getting information from DSS or DOL, and she collected our housing logs. If we had an appointment or phone call with DSS or DOL she wrote it down along with the verbal exchanges and results and put them in our file. And twice a week we had to have a face-to-face meeting with her where she basically asked us how our search for housing was going and what our goals were. She wrote down the information on her forms and put those in our files. It seemed to me like she did a lot of talking and writing but no actual helping.

She was transferred a few months after the kids and I moved in; she had medical problems and didn’t drive so she needed to be closer to her home. Her replacement was a great lady, a little older than I am, and a lot like me. She wanted to see all of us succeed in getting out of the shelter and moving on with our lives. She was great to talk to if I had a problem or just wanted to chat, and she never failed to have some good advice when I needed it. She was one of a few of the staff members that I really liked.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t usually dislike anyone but there was some staff that caused problems for the residents because of the inconsistency in the way they all enforced the rules. Other than the case manager there was a facility coordinator whose job was to see that all the rules were being followed and that the house was kept up to code. She didn’t and it wasn’t but I’ll talk about that another time because I want to get to the rest of the staff.

I’ve already mentioned H who had more shifts than anyone. All the others were there for a shift or two during the week: 8:00-4:00 on Saturday or Sunday since that weekday shift was taken by the case manager; 4:00-midnight or midnight-8:00a.m. Those staff members, including H, although they had a specific title that I can’t remember, were glorified babysitters. They were there to sit at the house to watch us come and go and make sure we followed the rules.

There was a notebook that they had to write in every hour on the hour – who was still on the grounds and who wasn’t, who had an incident with the staff or another resident, who did and didn’t do their chore, whose kids threw a tantrum, etc. I kid you not. Our entire lives were written down in that notebook by every staff member only for it to be perused by every other staff member who came in on a later shift.

Those were the staff members who made it difficult for all for the residents, and not because they were trying to but because they all had a different outlook on the rules and how they needed to be enforced. Most of us followed the rules like we were supposed to but there were a few who didn’t and the rest of us just had to deal with it. It was just another aggravation that I had to deal with on a daily basis.

Some of the staff was really strict when it came to chores being done by a specific time and everyone being off the floor by curfew while others let people slide without doing their chores and allowing them to be in the common rooms after curfew. The kitchen closed at 10:00 but there were a few residents who ignored the rule and staff that allowed it. TVs were supposed to be off during school days but some of the residents were permitted to sit around all day watching it while the rest of us were out doing what DSS and DOL told us to do. Understand the aggravation?

It was hard enough to live in a house with a bunch of people I didn’t know and sometimes didn’t like, but it was even harder when those same people were permitted to get away with whatever they wanted. Having to explain to my kids why it was allowed didn’t help the situation any, it just made my life more difficult and I’m sure you’ll understand why when I explain certain instances in other posts. For now I’m getting some rest. My kids loved their first day of school and I enjoyed relaxing a bit. Now it’s off to bed to do it all again tomorrow.

Until next time…peace to all.